Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Duke  University  Libraries 


https://archive.org/details/trialofleofrankrOOarno 


THE  TRIAL  OF  LEO  FRANK 


REUBEN  R.  ARNOLD 


THE 

TRIAL  OF  LEO  FRANK 


REUBEN  R.  ARNOLD’S 
ADDRESS  TO  THE  COURT  IN 
HIS  BEHALF 


INTRODUCTION  BY  ALVIN  V.  SELLERS 


Baxley,  Ga. 

CLASSIC  PUBLISHING  CO. 


Copyright,  1915,  by 

ALVIN  V.  SELLERS 


THE  TROW  PRESS. 


NEW  YORK 


Introduction 


ON  Saturday,  April  26,  1913,  Mary  Phagan 
left  her  Bellwood  home — two  miles  away — 
to  go  to  the  office  of  the  National  Pencil 
Company  in  Atlanta,  Ga.,  to  collect  the  wages  due 
her  for  some  work  she  had  done  as  an  employee  of 
the  company;  and  then,  perchance,  to  mingle  with 
friends  in  the  holiday  crowds  of  that  throbbing  city. 

It  was  just  before  noon  on  this  Confederate  Memo¬ 
rial  Day  that  this  girl  of  youth  and  beauty  went  away 
from  that  suburban  home  to  which  she  was,  alas!  to 
return  no  more  forever. 

Her  lifeless  body  was  found  early  Sunday  morn¬ 
ing  in  the  basement  of  the  pencil  factory  in  the  very 
center  of  that  Southern  metropolis.  There  were 
marks  of  violence  upon  her  person,  and  a  cord  was 
tightly  drawn  around  her  neck.  She  had  died  of 
strangulation. 

By  the  body  were  found  two  notes  purporting  to 
have  been  written  by  the  girl  herself  as  she  lay — a 
stricken  prisoner — in  that  dark  cellar  of  gloom  and 
desolation. 


Human  reason  rebelled  at  the  weird  suggestion 


198778 


Duke  U.  Law  Library 


Introduction 


elusion  was  irresistible  that  the  writer  and  the  mur¬ 
derer  were  one. 

Leo  M.  Frank,  the  superintendent  of  the  factory, 
stated  that  this  little  girl  came  to  his  office  on  the 
second  floor  of  this  factory  building  that  early  after¬ 
noon  for  her  wages,  that  he  gave  her  the  amount  due 
her,  that  she  immediately  left  the  office  and  that  he 
saw  her  no  more. 

Searches  for  the  girl’s  meager  purse  were  vain  and 
unavailing  and  the  mystery  of  the  murder  deepened 
as  the  days  wore  away. 

Specimens  of  various  parties’  handwriting  were 
obtained  and  compared  with  the  notes — with  a  re¬ 
lentless  resolve  to  find  the  one  who  had  destroyed 
that  pure  and  radiant  life  in  the  bloom  of  its  stainless 
morning. 

Jim  Conley,  a  negro  employee  of  the  factory,  when 
asked  for  a  specimen  of  his  handwriting,  proclaimed 
his  inability  to  write.  Written  evidence,  however, 
was  found  to  the  contrary  and  Conley,  confronted 
with  this  proof,  eventually  admitted  writing  the 
notes,  but  said  he  wrote  them  for  his  employer  Frank 
on  the  day  before  the  girl  was  killed.  He  asserted 
that  he  was  innocent  of  the  murder  and  that  he  was 
not  even  at  the  factory  on  the  day  it  was  committed. 

Frank  was  indicted  by  the  Grand  Jury  and  his  trial 
began  on  July  28,  1913.  Solicitor  General  Hugh  M. 
Dorsey,  assisted  by  E.  A.  Stephens  and  F.  A.  Hooper, 

6 


Introduction 


appeared  for  the  State.  Luther  Z.  Rosser,  Reuben  R. 
Arnold  and  Herbert  Haas  represented  the  defendant. 

At  the  trial  Conley  testified  that  he  was  at  the  fac¬ 
tory  on  this  Saturday  afternoon,  that  he  saw  Mary 
Phagan  enter  and  go  up  the  stairway  that  led  to  the 
second  floor,  that  presently  he  heard  a  scream;  and 
that  soon  thereafter  Frank  told  him  he  had  approached 
her,  she  had  resisted,  he  had  struck  her  and  she  had 
fallen.  He  stated  further  that  he  and  Frank  carried 
the  body  down  into  the  cellar  and  that  he  later  went 
up  into  Frank’s  office  where  he,  at  Frank’s  request 
and  dictation,  wrote  the  notes  that  were  afterwards 
found  by  the  body  of  the  dead  girl. 

Conley  readily  admitted  that  much  of  his  evidence 
conflicted  with  previous  affidavits  he  had  made,  but 
insisted  that  he  was  now  telling  the  truth. 

The  defense  contended  that  Conley’s  story  was  a 
fabrication;  that  Frank  had  no  knowledge  of  the  crime 
and  had  no  motive  to  murder;  that  Conley  himself 
killed  the  girl  when  she  came  down  the  stairs  with  her 
purse  in  her  hand,  and  that  after  the  evidence  began 
to  accumulate  that  he  had  written  the  notes  he  felt 
compelled — in  order  to  save  himself — to  charge  their 
origin  to  another  and  allege  that  he,  not  Conley,  was 
the  perpetrator  of  the  deed. 

Many  witnesses  were  sworn  by  each  side  and  the 
trial  had  entered  its  fifth  week  before  it  was  con¬ 
cluded. 

7 


L98778 


Duke  U,  Law  Libl&tv 


Introduction 


Frank  was  convicted  and  sentence  of  death  pro¬ 
nounced  upon  him.  A  motion  for  a  new  trial  was 
made  by  his  counsel,  and  the  hearing  of  this  motion 
took  place  later  before  the  trial  judge,  Hon.  L.  S. 
Roan. 

The  address  which  follows  was  delivered  at  that 
hearing  by  Reuben  R.  Arnold,  one  of  the  most  bril¬ 
liant  of  Southern  orators  and  one  of  the  great  lawyers 
of  this  great  Union  of  States. 

I  am  sure  that  all  who  appreciate  forensic  eloquence 
and  like  to  read  and  study  the  masterpieces  of  the 
bar,  will  welcome  the  publication  of  Mr.  Arnold’s 
presentation  of  his  client’s  defense  in  the  South’s  most 
noted  criminal  case. 

Alvin  V.  Sellers. 

Baxley,  Ga.,  1915. 


8 


THE  TRIAL  OF  LEO  FRANK 


Speech  of  Mr.  Arnold 

MAY  It  Please  Your  Honor: 

It  takes  thirteen  jurors  to  murder  a  man 
in  cold  blood.  So  that  I  feel  I  am  not  only  justified 
but  required,  by  the  scope  of  Your  Honor’s  authority 
and  duty  and  the  tremendous  responsibility  that  rests 
upon  you,  to  argue  to  the  court  the  facts  of  this  un¬ 
usual  case,  and  to  give  the  reasons  why  the  verdict  of 
guilty  should  be  set  aside  and  a  new  trial  granted. 

In  many  respects,  this  is  an  unusual  case.  Unfor¬ 
tunately,  murder  is  a  frequent  crime.  The  example 
of  Cain  is  too  often  followed  in  this  vale  of  tears,  and 
this  very  community  has  had  many  killings  that  were 
horrible  to  contemplate. 

That  fact  does  not  mitigate  this  offense,  of  course, 
in  any  degree — and  this  was  an  atrocious  deed — but 
I  do  say,  that  while  we  have  seen  murder  here  as  cruel 
as  this,  we  have  had  no  such  trial  as  this. 

The  feeling  here  grows  out  of  something  over  and 
beyond  the  mere  facts  of  the  crime,  and  if  you  will 
look  down  a  little  under  the  surface  you  will  find  the 
cause  to  be  the  one  that  has  run  down  the  ages  and 
shed  innocent  blood  for  twenty  centuries. 

9 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


A  trial  is  going  on  to-day  in  Russia  that  parallels 
this  case.  A  Jew  is  there  being  tried  for  a  ritual 
murder  of  a  thirteen-year-old  boy.  The  naked  evi¬ 
dence  against  him  makes  a  terrible  case ;  but  the  civil¬ 
ized  world  stands  aghast  at  it,  looks  upon  it  with 
horror,  and  knows  that  the  attempt  to  connect  that 
man  with  the  murder  is  but  the  hideous  appearance 
again  of  that  racial  prejudice  that  has  reflected  no 
credit  for  two  thousand  years  upon  the  race  to  which 
Your  Honor  and  I  belong. 

I  feel,  Your  Honor,  that  the  time  is  coming  when 
the  whole  human  race  will  be  one  great  brotherhood. 
Some  day  all  of  this  prejudice  will  cease  to  exist. 
That  day  is  already  here  with  enlightened  people; 
and  it  is  here  with  some  of  the  benighted  part  of  the 
population  when  they  allow  their  better  feelings  to 
prevail. 

We  have  the  best  people  on  earth  in  this  Southern 
country.  We  are  really  the  only  American  part  of 
this  Republic;  and  I  know  that  when  our  people 
finally  think  and  feel  on  a  subject  like  this  they  will 
come  to  a  decision  divested  of  all  prejudice  and  find 
only  truth. 

As  long,  though,  as  there  is  an  element  pushing  itself 
into  a  courthouse  to  disgrace  the  community  by 
applause  and  demonstration,  a  great  many  people  are 
going  to  take  that  as  manifestation  of  the  public  senti¬ 
ment.  They  forget  the  thousands  of  good  people  who 
are  up  in  the  offices,  in  the  shops,  in  the  stores.  They 
take  it  for  granted  that  the  public  sentiment  is  shown 

io 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

by  the  acts  of  those  persons  who  have  nothing  to  do 
except  to  crowd  into  a  courthouse  where  a  poor  fel¬ 
low  is  on  trial  for  his  life,  and  who  cheer,  and  whose 
faces  light  up  with  smiles  when  he  is  found  guilty, 
and  who  rejoice  and  shake  hands  with  each  other  and 
throw  up  their  caps  in  glee  over  the  fact  that  a  man 
is  sentenced  to  die.  That  was  the  spirit  that  clung 
to  the  Frank  trial. 

I  was  reading  in  this  morning’s  newspaper  an  article 
from  the  pen  of  a  writer  who  was  undertaking  to 
account  for  congregations  of  men — mobs,  we  call 
them — perpetrating  deeds  of  atrocity  when  ordinarily 
and  naturally  a  man  as  an  individual  is  kind.  He 
said  the  spirit  of  the  mob  was  not  the  spirit  of  any 
one  mind,  but  the  fusion  of  many  and  their  effect 
upon  each  other,  just  as  you  mix  many  chemicals  and 
produce  a  result  different  and  apart  from  the  quality 
of  any  one  chemical  that  entered  into  the  mixture. 

And  how  deadly  is  the  spirit  of  the  mob!  When 
the  great  War  President  Lincoln  was  assassinated — 
cruelly  killed  by  a  fanatic  who  represented  naught 
but  his  own  disordered  brain — so  wild  were  the  people 
in  civilized  Washington,  the  seat  of  government,  of 
enlightenment,  of  culture,  that  they  committed  a 
crime  which  compared  with  the  assassination  itself. 
They  put  to  death  six  or  seven  people  charged  with 
being  members  of  a  conspiracy  to  assassinate  the 
President.  Among  those  put  to  death  was  a  poor 
woman,  Mrs.  Surratt,  admitted  now  by  everybody, 
North  and  South,  to  have  been  guiltless  of  the  crime. 


n 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 

Sentiment,  prejudice,  excitement,  had  taken  the  place 
of  justice. 

And  so  it  was  when  Frank  was  tried!  An  intense 
prejudice  on  the  part  of  ignorant  people  sometimes 
overlaps  that  class  and  spreads  into  other  circles  by 
the  mere  fact  of  its  existence. 

Your  Honor,  there  should  have  been  but  a  single 
question  in  the  Frank  case,  and  there  should  have 
been  no  feeling  in  arriving  at  the  truth.  I  never 
could  understand  how  anybody  could  be  prejudiced 
about  ascertaining  a  fact.  Why  should  there  be  any 
feeling  in  simply  determining  the  question,  Did  A  kill 
B?  Yet  we  were  so  overwhelmed  with  it  that  all 
energies  were  bended  in  an  effort  to  overcome  the 
influence  of  the  crowd  that  piled  around  us,  blocked 
our  way  from  and  to  the  court,  applauded  in  and  out 
of  court,  and  scowled  menacingly  at  Frank.  The 
looks  of  murder  that  appeared  in  human  eyes  reached 
court,  lawyers,  witnesses,  jurors. 

Argument  was  lost  upon  that  jury.  Proving  facts 
was  but  casting  pearls  before  swine.  There  they  sat, 
huddled  like  twelve  sheep  in  the  shambles.  Talk  to 
me  about  those  jurors  not  having  been  influenced  by 
such  surroundings!  They  may  not  know  they  were. 
Nor  did  the  rabbit  that  ran  through  the  briar  patch 
know  which  briar  scratched  and  which  did  not. 

I  venture  to  say  if  this  case  had  been  tried  where  it 
had  never  been  heard  of  before,  without  the  feeling, 
the  prejudice  and  excitement  which  clustered  about 
it  here,  with  Your  Honor  as  the  judge,  and  before 


12 


Mr.  Arnold’s  Address  to  the  Court 

a  fair  and  impartial  jury  with  minds  unstained  by 
whispered  lies  and  white  as  unsoiled  sheets  of  paper, 
there  would  not  have  been  a  moment’s  hesitation 
about  the  verdict. 

Why  should  there  be?  Was  ever  a  case  heard  of 
before  where  the  only  witness  on  whose  testimony  the 
conviction  rested  was  a  party  to  the  crime,  both  before 
it  was  committed,  by  watching,  and  after  it  was  com¬ 
mitted,  by  helping  to  conceal  the  body;  was  a  crimi¬ 
nal  of  the  lowest  type  and  as  absolutely  devoid  of  con¬ 
science  as  a  man-eating  tiger;  one  who  lied  in  writing 
four  different  times,  and  who  never  confessed  any¬ 
thing  about  the  crime  until  the  dead  evidence  was 
discovered  on  him  that  he  had  written  the  notes  that 
accompanied  the  body;  who  admitted  he  lied  many 
times  in  his  affidavits;  and  where,  after  he  made  his 
last  affidavit,  the  story  that  he  brought  into  court  was 
so  unlike  it  that  you  could  hardly  recognize  any  points 
of  similarity;  and  where  he  changed  his  story  seven 
different  times  when  he  went  over  the  subject  with  the 
Solicitor  General? 

As  my  lamented  friend  Charlie  Hill  used  to  say, 
“Did  ever  one  hobble  to  a  verdict  on  such  a  rotten 
pair  of  crutches?”  Does  Your  Honor  believe  that  a 
worm  that  crawls  in  the  dust  would  have  been  con¬ 
victed  on  such  testimony  under  ordinary  and  usual 
circumstances? 

Admitting  he  lied  scores  of  times  in  matters  of  sub¬ 
stance  and  in  immaterial  matters,  a  criminal  from 
birth  practically,  without  character,  without  stand- 

13 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


ing,  with  every  motive  to  lie,  with  his  own  neck  to 
save,  Conley  was  so  plastered  over  with  contradic¬ 
tions  that  it’s  monstrous  to  argue  his  testimony. 

And  yet  people  say  he  stayed  on  the  stand  three 
days  without  breaking  down!  He  did  stay  there 
physically  three  days,  and  all  the  wretch  would  say 
when  you  got  him  outside  of  the  story  he  was  fixed 
and  prepared  on  was  “I  don’t  know,”  or  “I  lied  about 
that,”  or  “I  don’t  remember.”  You  can  teach  a 
parrot,  “Polly  wants  a  cracker,”  and  he  will  say  it  six 
months,  and  he  won’t  break  down  on  it  either  unless 
you  take  a  club  and  knock  him  down. 

An  idea  seems  to  be  abroad  that  a  lawyer  has  to 
hypnotize  a  witness  and  get  him  to  talk  in  a  trance 
before  he  is  discredited.  If  a  witness’s  testimony  is 
unreasonable  or  unbelievable,  that  witness  is  broken 
down  in  the  legal  sense.  If  Rosser’s  bombardment 
didn’t  finish  Conley,  then  there  was  no  way  it  could 
be  done  except  by  cleaving  him  with  a  battle-axe. 

There  are  many  parts  of  the  record  here  showing 
what  marvelous  assistance  Conley  had  in  the  prepa¬ 
ration  of  his  story  before  he  was  ever  brought  into 
court  to  testify.  When  Conley  told  something  that 
didn’t  fit  in  with  the  undeniable  facts  of  the  crime,  the 
undisputed  logic  of  the  situation,  his  attention  was 
promptly  called  to  it  by  these  officers  who  had  him 
in  charge  and  were  nursing  him,  and  the  story  was 
changed;  when  he  made  a  statement  that  did  not  cor¬ 
respond  with  the  views  held  by  the  police  the  tale  was 
reconstructed. 


i4 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

Left  alone,  the  negro  spread  out  over  the  whole 
territory  of  asininity;  but  they  took  his  story  like 
you  would  take  a  rough  piece  of  timber  and  fashion 
it  over  with  the  power  of  machinery.  I  have  counted 
in  this  record  twenty-nine  lies  that  Detective  Scott 
testified  Jim  Conley  told  to  him  and  Detective  Black 
that  they  got  him  to  correct.  Twenty-nine  lies  that 
they  prevailed  upon  him  to  change!  Not  little, 
technical  lies,  but  big,  fat,  substantial  lies.  This 
is  not  a  mere  conclusion  of  mine.  The  record  is 
the  proof. 

Your  Honor  remembers  from  the  evidence  how  the 
negro’s  story  grew.  When  the  search  was  on  to  find 
the  writer  of  the  notes  there  was  no  doubt  in  any¬ 
body’s  mind,  of  course,  that  the  writer  of  the  notes 
was  the  murderer  of  the  girl.  That  fact  would  admit 
of  no  dispute.  Conley  was  denying  that  he  could 
write.  The  discovery  was  made,  however,  that  he 
could  write  and  the  evidence  gathered  that  he  was 
the  author  of  the  notes.  Conley  saw  no  way  to  save 
his  miserable  neck  except  to  say  he  had  written  them 
for  some  one  else. 

Frank  had  been  held  under  suspicion.  One  bank 
official  of  the  city  had  even  said  that  a  comparison  of 
the  notes  with  the  handwriting  of  Frank  indicated 
they  were  written  by  him.  Many  stories  of  unknown 
origin  were  circulated  everywhere.  The  cry  rang  out, 

“The  d -  Jew  did  it.”  Slanders  against  Frank 

were  poured  in  the  people’s  ears.  He  was  locked  up 
in  jail  and  had  no  chance  to  meet  them.  The  seeds 

IS 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


of  prejudice  were  sown  broadcast  and  Frank  was  con¬ 
demned  in  the  public  mind. 

Conley  saw  this  and  he  saw  his  own  life  trembling 
in  the  balances.  He  was  compelled  to  say  that  some 
one  else  was  the  real  author  of  the  notes  or  else  give 
up  his  life;  and  he  named  Frank  as  the  man.  He 
said  he  had  done  the  writing  at  Frank’s  dictation  on 
Friday — the  day  before  the  murder. 

Well,  of  course,  that  was  a  ridiculous,  unreasonable 
lie.  Mr.  Dorsey  does  not  contend  that  the  killing 
was  premeditated,  that  Frank  knew  on  Friday  he 
was  going  to  kill  the  girl  on  Saturday.  But  Conley, 
in  his  savage  ignorance,  saw  not  the  unreasonableness 
of  the  story  and  insisted  that  he  had  done  the  writing 
on  Friday. 

Now,  what  happened?  Let  me  read  from  Scott’s 
testimony.  Scott  says: 

We  talked  very  strongly  to  Conley.  We  saw  him  on 
May  27th  in  Chief  Lanford’s  office.  We  talked  to  him  five 
or  six  hours.  We  tried  to  impress  him  with  the  fact  that 
Frank  would  not  have  written  those  notes  on  Friday;  that 
that  was  not  a  reasonable  story.  That  showed  premedita¬ 
tion,  and  that  would  not  do.  We  pointed  out  to  him  why 
the  first  statement  would  not  fit.  We  told  him  we  wanted 
another  statement.  He  declined  to  make  it.  He  said  he 
had  told  the  truth.  On  May  28th  Chief  Lanford  and  I 
grilled  him  for  five  or  six  hours  again,  endeavoring  to  make 
clear  several  points  which  were  far-fetched  in  his  state¬ 
ment.  We  pointed  out  to  him  that  his  statement  would 
not  do  and  would  not  fit.  He  then  made  us  another  long 
statement. 

16 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

On  May  29th  we  had  another  talk  with  him;  talked  with 
him  almost  all  day.  Yes,  we  pointed  out  things  in  his  story 
that  were  improbable,  and  told  him  he  must  do  better 
than  that.  Anything  in  his  story  that  looked  to  be  out 
of  place  we  told  him  wouldn’t  do. 

Great  God!  It  sickens  me.  I  shudder  to  think  of 
the  deeds  perpetrated  in  this  case — the  methods  used 
to  bring  this  man  to  his  destruction. 

Take  the  Minola  McKnight  episode.  Mr.  Dorsey 
says: 

I  honor  the  way  they  went  after  Minola  McKnight. 

Now,  let  us  see  what  his  standard  of  honor  is. 
Here  was  a  poor,  humble,  negro  woman,  an  employee 
of  Frank’s  household:  the  husband  who  had  sworn  to 
protect  her  had  turned  against  her  and  she  was  help¬ 
less  and  alone.  She  is  taken  down  to  Mr.  Dorsey’s 
office,  and  there  she  makes  a  full  statement  showing 
that  she  knows  nothing  incriminating  against  her 
employer.  That  is  sworn  to  and  the  Solicitor  has  it 
:.n  writing. 

Now,  Dorsey  honors  the  fact  that  later  the  detec- 
ives  get  her  and  bring  her  back  to  his  office,  where  she 
s  confronted  with  her  husband,  who  tries  to  get  her 
0  agree  that  the  stories  he  is  telling  are  true.  Dorsey 
lonors  the  fact  that  when  she  refused  to  agree  they, 
n  flagrant  violation  of  law,  and  in  a  way  that  never 
rould  have  been  perpetrated  on  a  man  who  could 
ssert  his  rights,  took  her  to  the  station  house  with- 
ut  warrant  or  charge  of  crime,  and  there  compelled 

17 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


her,  behind  iron  bars,  in  tears,  and  before  uniformed 
and  armed  officers,  brass  buttons  and  pistols,  to  agree 
that  the  villainous  lies  her  husband  told  were  true. 
That’s  what  he  honors:  and  it  seems  the  jury  and 
the  crowd  honored  it,  too.  Was  this  a  mere  technical 
right  that  was  violated?  Not  so;  and  yet,  without 
technical  rules,  Might  would  always  triumph  over 
Right.  Our  race  has  experimented  in  government 
for  centuries,  not  as  vassals,  but  as  sovereigns;  and 
certain  laws  that  have  stood  the  test  of  time  have 
been  adopted  to  guide  us  between  governmental 
tyranny  on  the  one  hand  and  anarchy  on  the  other. 
Technicalities  they  may  be,  but  if  they  are  destroyed 
one  may  as  well  camp  out  in  the  woods  and  let  the 
strongest  man  prevail.  They  are  the  refined  wisdom 
of  the  ages. 

Hear  Dorsey  again: 

I  don’t  know  whether  they  want  me  to  apologize  for 
that  or  not,  but  if  you  think  that  finding  the  red-handed 
murderer  of  a  little  girl  like  this  is  a  ladies’  tea  party,  and 
that  the  detectives  should  have  the  manners  of  a  dancing 
master,  and  apologize  and  palaver,  you  don’t  know  any¬ 
thing  about  the  business. 

Oh,  no,  we  didn’t  expect  that;  but  we  did  expect 
them  not  to  violate  the  criminal  laws  of  the  country; 
we  did  expect  them,  when  a  witness  had  had  a  full 
and  fair  chance  to  make  a  statement,  to  let  her  alone; 
not  to  violate  the  laws  of  God  and  man,  and  put  the 
thumbscrews  and  torture  to  her  and  lock  her  in  a 

18 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

prison  cell  to  make  her  change  her  statement.  We 
did  expect  that;  and  you  wouldn’t  have  had  to  balk 
at  tea  parties  either:  you  could  have  gone  further 
than  that. 

May  it  please  Your  Honor,  those  are  some  of  the 
methods  that  have  been  used  against  the  man  over 
yonder  in  that  jail  who  is  condemned  to  death  on  as 
base  a  fabrication  as  was  ever  constructed  in  darkest 
Russia. 

Your  Honor,  I  speak  plainly  because  I  am  so  con¬ 
stituted  by  Nature  that  I  cannot  call  a  spade  any¬ 
thing  except  a  spade.  I  am  looking  through  all 
the  surrounding  paint  and  varnish  to  see  the  hideous 
thing  inside  of  this  prosecution,  and  it  sickens  me  to 
think  that  man  in  jail  is  in  peril  from  such  methods. 

There  is  no  evidence  against  him  in  this  case  except 
such  as  comes  from  Jim  Conley,  that  prince  of  liars. 
You  could  no  more  impeach  Conley  by  showing  he 
had  lied  than  you  could  saturate  a  duck  by  pouring 
water  down  its  back.  He  is  impervious  to  a  charge  of 
lying.  He  will  admit  it  any  day  in  the  week. 

But  Mr.  Dorsey,  realizing  what  a  burden  Conley  is 
for  him  to  carry,  says  Conley  is  not  the  only  evidence 
in  the  case.  For  instance,  he  says  the  expression,  “It 
is  too  short  a  time  since  you  left  for  anything  startling 
to  have  developed  down  here,”  in  a  letter  written  by 
Frank  on  the  day  of  the  tragedy,  shows  guilt.  Ex¬ 
pressions  of  this  character  are  extremely  common  in 
letters;  but  Mr.  Dorsey  says  it  proves  that  something 
startling  had  happened  and  that  the  writer  had  killed 

i9 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


Mary  Phagan.  That  deduction  of  Mr.  Dorsey’s  is 
just  as  sound  as  any  other  he  has  drawn. 

In  this  letter,  which  was  written  on  Memorial  Day 
to  Frank’s  uncle,  himself  a  Confederate  Soldier,  the 
writer  also  refers  to  the  “thin  gray  line  of  veterans 
braving  the  chilly  weather  to  honor  their  fallen  com¬ 
rades.”  I  would  be  glad  to  hear  even  an  Arab  of  the 
desert  speak  kindly  of  these  men,  but  Mr.  Dorsey  sneers 
at  this  tribute  Frank  paid  the  old  soldiers  in  gray. 

Everything  that  Frank  did  has  had  an  unfair  con¬ 
struction  placed  upon  it,  and  is  looked  upon  as  a  cir¬ 
cumstance  of  guilt  and  sufficient  reason  for  his  con¬ 
demnation. 

It  reminds  me  of  the  fable  of  the  wolf  and  the  lamb. 
The  wolf  was  going  to  kill  the  lamb  for  muddying  the 
water.  “But,”  said  the  lamb,  “you  are  drinking 
above  me  in  the  run  of  the  stream.”  “Well,”  said 
the  wolf,  “I  don’t  care;  your  grandfather  muddied  it 
once  and  I  am  going  to  get  you  anyhow.” 

Mr.  Dorsey  also  refers  to  the  telegram  sent  by 
Frank  on  Monday  to  Adolph  Montag,  telling  him  of 
the  finding  of  the  body  in  the  cellar  of  the  pencil 
factory.  Dorsey  says: 

In  factory?  In  factory?  No,  “in  cellar.”  Cellar  where? 
“Cellar  of  pencil  factory.” 

There  was  no  sense  in  all  this  talk  of  Mr.  Dorsey’s 
but  there  was  plenty  of  sound  and  that  was  satis¬ 
factory  to  the  jury. 

Yes,  she  had  been  found  in  the  “cellar  of  the  pencil 


20 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

factory.”  The  police  had  come  for  Frank  and  carried 
him  down  there.  The  story  would  be  in  all  the 
papers.  Many  rumors  were  being  started.  Frank, 
the  superintendent  of  the  factory,  wired  Montag,  one 
of  the  owners  of  the  factory,  telling  him  of  the  tragedy 
and  asking  him  to  assure  his  uncle  he  was  all  right  in 
case  he  asked. 

Is  there  anything  incriminating  here?  No  fair 
mind  can  find  it.  But  all  Dorsey  had  to  do  with 
that  gang  of  wolves  out  there  in  the  audience  was  to 
turn  and  look  at  them  and  they  would  beam  on  him 
with  bloody  satisfaction.  They  were  trying  to  take 
the  life  of  a  fellow  creature  in  holiday  fashion  and 
Frank  was  the  butt  end  of  that  Roman  holiday. 

Again,  they  say  that  when  Helen  Ferguson  received 
her  pay  on  Friday  she  also  asked  for  Mary  Phagan’s 
pay  envelope  and  that  Frank  refused  to  give  it  to  her. 
Even  if  this  had  happened  it  would  have  been  no 
evidence  of  guilt  and  would  have  proved  nothing. 
It  was  not  usual  to  give  one  person’s  pay  envelope  to 
another  except  on  proper  request. 

But  it  is  overwhelmingly  a  mistake.  In  the  first 
place  the  evidence  shows  that  on  Friday  Frank  did 
not  pay  off  the  employees  but  that  Schiff  did. 
Furthermore,  Magnolia  Kennedy  testified  that  she 
was  with  Helen  Ferguson  when  they  both  received  their 
pay,  that  they  received  their  envelopes  from  Schiff, 
not  from  Frank,  that  they  left  the  factory  together 
and  that  the  witness  Ferguson  did  not  ask  for  any¬ 
body’s  pay  except  her  own. 


21 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


Further,  Mr.  Dorsey  says  that  when  these  notes 
that  were  found  by  the  body  of  the  dead  girl  were 
shown  to  Frank,  he  should  have  then  and  there  said: 
“This  is  the  writing  of  James  Conley.” 

Frank,  locked  up  in  his  prison  cell,  did  not  know 
at  that  time  that  Conley  was  denying  he  could  write, 
and  had  no  reason  to  think  that  specimens  of  Conley’s 
handwriting  had  not  already  been  compared  with  the 
notes.  None  of  these  officers  had  told  Frank  that 
Conley  claimed  he  could  not  write. 

Moreover,  Frank  did  not  know  the  handwriting  of 
Conley  and  there  is  no  proof  that  he  did.  It  is  true 
that  he  .  had  seen  Conley’s  writing  but  there  was  no 
individuality  about  it  sufficient  to  impress  itself  upon 
one’s  memory.  Even  between  these  two  notes  them¬ 
selves  there  is  little  similarity.  You  could  not  testify 
they  were  written  by  the  same  man. 

While  there  are  classes  of  people — professors  of 
penmanship,  bank  tellers,  etc., — who  seem  to  store 
away  an  impression  of  handwriting  in  the  mind  and 
recognize  it  when  they  see  it  again  as  if  it  were  a 
human  face,  yet  to  most  people  there  is  only  a  gener¬ 
ality  about  handwriting  and  seldom  indeed  it  is  that 
one  retains  a  mental  picture  of  the  writing  of  the 
average  negro.  Why,  even  Mr.  Berry,  the  bank  teller 
who  studied  those  notes  and  who  studied  the  hand¬ 
writing  of  Newt  Lee,  named  Lee  as  their  author. 

Holloway,  Darley,  Schiff,  Wade  Campbell  and 
others  had  also  seen  Conley’s  writing,  but  it  never 
occurred  to  them  when  they  looked  at  the  notes  that 


22 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

they  were  written  by  Conley.  Surely,  if  this  is  a  cir¬ 
cumstance  of  guilt  it  is  as  strong  against  these  men  as 
it  is  against  Frank.  Mr.  Dorsey,  though,  does  not 
claim  that  they  had  any  part  in  the  killing  of  this 
child.  Moreover,  Frank  did  not  know  that  Conley 
had  been  to  the  factory  on  this  holiday.  No  one 
seemed  to  have  seen  him.  Mrs.  White  had  said  she 
saw  some  negro  about  the  stairway;  and,  according 
to  Detective  Scott’s  evidence,  Frank  gave  him  this 
information  on  Monday  following  the  tragedy.  What 
more  could  Frank  have  done?  And  would  he  have 
done  that  if  he  had  been  Conley’s  accomplice? 

But  they  say  Frank  was  so  excited  and  nervous  over 
the  murder  on  Sunday  morning  that  he  “trembled 
like  an  aspen.”  If  he  was  nervous  it  was  the  sight  of 
the  dead  girl  and  the  discovery  of  such  a  tragedy 
enacted  in  the  factory  under  his  charge  that  made  him 
nervous.  He  was  not  nervous  on  Saturday  afternoon 
when  he  prepared  the  financial  sheet  that  the  fore¬ 
most  experts  of  the  South  say  would  require  several 
hours’  work.  It  has  been  overwhelmingly  established 
that  he  did  that  work  on  Saturday  afternoon,  and  yet 
there  is  not  a  trace  of  nervousness  in  all  that  mass  of 
figures,  in  all  that  intricate,  complicated  work.  A  con¬ 
sciousness  of  guilt  would  have  made  him  nervous 
then.  But  there  was  no  nervousness  then,  for  he 
knew  not  at  that  time  that  the  corpse  of  the  little  girl 
was  down  there  in  the  basement  beneath  him. 

And  yet  on  such  argument  as  that,  and  amid  such 
surroundings  as  those,  an  innocent  man  is  condemned 

23 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


to  die!  There  is  not  a  proven  circumstance  in  this 
case  that  cannot  be  shown  to  the  satisfaction  of  any 
reasonable  man  that  it  is  not  a  circumstance  of 
guilt  on  the  part  of  this  defendant. 

Why,  may  it  please  Your  Honor,  the  physical  facts 
of  this  case  show  that  this  crime  could  not  have  been 
committed  by  Leo  M.  Frank.  The  parents  of  the 
little  Phagan  girl  swore  she  left  Bellwood — out  there 
two  miles  from  the  city — at  1 1 150  a.  m.  That  little 
State’s  witness  Epps  says  he  got  on  the  car  with  her. 
Neither  the  conductor  nor  the  motorman  saw  him, 
but  he  says  he  got  on  with  her  and  got  off  at  Forsyth 
and  Marietta  Streets  at  12:07.  Detective  Starnes 
says  it  took  him  from  three  and  a  half  to  four  minutes 
to  walk  from  that  point  to  the  pencil  factory. 

According  to  the  State’s  own  witness,  therefore,  the 
little  girl  could  not  possibly  have  reached  the  pencil 
factory  sooner  than  ten  and  one  half  minutes  after 
twelve.  Epps  was  the  first  witness  the  State  put  up, 
and  the  State  soon  realized  he  had  crushed  their  case, 
and  began  to  wriggle  to  get  away  from  their  own 
testimony. 

The  motorman  says  she  rode  all  the  way  around 
Broad  Street  to  Hunter  Street  and  got  off  there  at 
12:10.  According  to  this  evidence  she  would  not 
have  reached  the  pencil  factory  before  12:12.  Now, 
the  schedule  of  the  street  car  is  shown  in  corroboration 
of  the  evidence  as  to  the  time  the  car  arrived  in  the 
city;  and  what  does  the  State  do?  They  put  up  a  few 
street  car  men  who  said  they  sometimes  came  in  ahead 

24 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

of  time,  though  they  said  it  was  unusual  to  do  so, 
was  against  the  rules  and  they  got  demerited  for  it. 
Moreover,  not  one  of  the  witnesses  said  that  on  this 
day,  April  26th,  the  car  came  in  ahead  of  time;  and 
the  men  that  were  on  the  car,  the  motorman,  the 
conductor  and  George  Epps,  all  say  it  got  in  from 
12:07  to  12:12. 

Does  Your  Honor,  in  all  of  your  experience  before, 
ever  remember  three  positive  witnesses  who  were 
there  when  a  thing  occurred,  one  of  them  a  witness  of 
the  State — all  put  into  the  discard  because  at  some 
other  time  the  thing  had  happened  differently  from 
the  way  it  happened  then?  Their  whole  case  jails 
absolutely  to  the  ground  if  she  got  of  the  car  as  late  as 
12:07. 

[The  Court:]  Why,  Mr.  Arnold? 

[Mr.  Arnold:]  I’ll  show  you  why.  Monteen  Stover, 
the  State’s  witness,  gets  there  at  12:05.  She  looks  to 
see  the  time  as  she  had  been  trying  to  get  there  by 
twelve.  She  waited  in  the  hall  five  minutes  and 
left  at  12:10.  Their  star  witness,  Jim  Conley,  says 
Mary  Phagan  came  in  before  Monteen  Stover  came 
in.  Your  Honor,  can  they  play  fast  and  loose  with 
us?  Can  they  put  up  a  witness  and  prove  a  certain 
time  by  the  minute  and  then  cast  that  witness  out  of 
the  case  just  because  it  conflicts  with  some  other  part 
of  their  case?  Miss  Hall,  an  unimpeached  witness, 
left  at  12:02.  So  that  the  little  Phagan  girl,  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  State’s  theory,  could  have  gotten  there  only 
between  12:02  and  12:05.  And  yet,  according  to  the 

25 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


evidence  of  the  motorman  and  conductor,  the  car  on 
which  she  rode  to  town  that  day  had  not  come  in  at 
that  time. 

These  are  cold,  unanswerable  facts.  Either  Jim 
Conley  lied  or  he  told  the  truth.  They  are  com¬ 
mitted  to  him.  Jim  Conley  says  Mary  Phagan  had 
gone  up  to  Frank’s  office,  had  gone  back  to  the  metal 
room  and  he  had  heard  her  scream  before  Monteen 
Stover  came  in,  and  the  Stover  girl  came  in  at  12:05. 

Oh,  my!  They  don’t  give  Frank  much  time  to  do 
this  deed.  Do  you  believe  all  that  struggle  would 
have  ended  with  just  one  scream?  Monteen  Stover 
stayed  there  quietly  five  minutes.  Don’t  you  sup¬ 
pose  she  would  have  heard  some  kind  of  noise?  Isn’t 
it  remarkable  that  Frank  didn’t  go  out  while  she  was 
there  if  he  had  finished  the  job?  And  if  it  was  still 
going  on  while  she  was  there,  isn’t  it  remarkable  that 
she  heard  nothing? 

Monstrous  fabrication!  Putting  up  clocks,  putting 
up  street  car  schedules,  almost  changing  the  sun  in  its 
course,  to  convict  this  man ! 

Now,  suppose  she  got  there  at  12:10  or  12:12. 
Quinn  says  he  saw  Frank  at  12:20.  Mrs.  White  says 
she  saw  him  in  his  office  at  12 :3o.  He  is  seen  by  men 
upstairs  just  before  he  goes  to  dinner  at  12:50.  Then 
comes  in  the  time  that  this  negro  claims  the  body 
was  moved. 

Let  us  see  how  this  claim  is  borne  out.  Bear  in 
mind,  the  moving  of  the  body  could  not  have  begun 
much  before  one  o’clock,  because  White  and  Denham 

26 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

say  Frank  was  upstairs  talking  to  them,  between 
1 2 150  and  1  :oo,  and  the  negro  himself  claims  the  mov¬ 
ing  of  the  body  began  at  four  minutes  to  one  and  was 
-completed  by  half  past  one. 

Now,  we  are  getting  down  to  the  very  vitals  of  the 
case,  and  the  moving  of  the  body  is  as  much  a  part 
of  the  case  as  the  very  murder.  If  Conley  has  lied 
about  that,  he  has  lied  about  it  all. 

Conley  says  Frank  left  not  sooner  than  1:30. 
Harlee  Branch  says,  that  from  the  time  the  negro 
took,  in  his  pantomime  demonstration — where  he  went 
over  with  the  officers  the  various  things  that  he  says 
were  done  that  day — it  could  not  have  been  finished 
before  1:30.  Dr.  Owens  says  the  same  thing.  There 
is  no  conflict  about  it.  And  the  negro  could  not  have 
been  mistaken  as  to  its  being  as  late  as  four  minutes 
to  one,  because  Denham  and  White  are  seeing  Frank 
and  talking  to  him  upstairs  as  late  as  12:50,  and  it 
was  evident  that  under  the  State’s  theory  it  must 
have  been  after  that  that  the  moving  of  the  body 
started.  The  Solicitor  General  contended  that  he  was 
getting  Mrs.  White  out  of  the  building  for  that  very 
purpose.  There  can’t  be  any  mistake  about  the 
time;  there  have  been  too  many  experiments  made. 

Branch  said  that  Conley  in  his  pantomime  demon¬ 
stration  went  through  very  rapidly,  and  he  estimates 
that  the  things  Conley  said  he  and  Frank  did  would 
have  taken  fifty  minutes;  that  would  have  put  it 
twenty  minutes  to  two.  Dr.  Owens  said  they  went 
through  the  demonstration  in  thirty-four  minutes. 

27 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


Bear  in  mind,  after  they  moved  the  body,  they 
came  up  into  Frank’s  office  and  wrote  the  notes,  and 
Owens  didn’t  include  the  time  that  Conley  says  he 
was  concealed  in  the  wardrobe.  Scott  swore  it  took 
him  three  to  five  minutes  to  write  one  note;  he  saw 
him  write  it.  And  remember  that  in  writing  this 
note  he  was  just  copying  one  he  had  already  seen.  To 
make  it  up  and  write  it  as  he  says  he  and  Frank  were 
doing,  would  certainly  have  taken  another  three  to 
five  minutes  at  the  very  least  calculation.  He  wrote 
four  notes — twelve  minutes — and  stayed  in  the 
wardrobe  eight  minutes.  That  makes  twenty  minutes, 
outside  of  moving  the  body  from  that  metal  room 
down  into  the  basement,  running  up  the  elevator, 
and  so  forth.  Tell  me  he  could  have  done  it  even  in 
thirty-five  minutes?  It  was  a  physical  impossibility. 

Now,  there  is  the  case.  It  is  either  true  or  false. 
Did  Frank  stay  there  until  half  past  one  at  the  very 
lowest  calculation?  If  we  prove  him  out  of  there  by 
credible  evidence,  five,  ten,  or  fifteen  minutes  before 
that  time,  the  State’s  case  falls  to  the  ground.  I 
don’t  believe  he  could  have  gotten  home  even  by  two 
o'clock  if  he  had  done  all  the  negro  said  he  did. 

Mr.  Dorsey  criticizes  us  for  saying  that  Frank  left 
the  factory  at  one  o’clock  and  refers  to  a  statement 
Frank  made  at  the  station  house,  on  the  second  day 
after  the  crime,  indicating  that  he  left  at  about  i  :io. 
He  did  estimate  the  time  to  be  “about  1:10.”  Well, 
suppose  you  take  it  “about  1:10.”  From  the  pencil 
factory  to  the  corner  where  this  Kern  witness — a 

28 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

young  girl,  unimpeached — says  she  saw  him  at  1:10 
or  i : 1 1,  is  only  about  one  and  a  half  or  two  minutes’ 
walk.  The  evidence  shows  that  if  he  had  left  there 
at  1:07  or  1:08  he  could  have  got  to  where  this  girl 
saw  him  at  1  :io.  Is  there  any  dispute  about  that? 

Frank  says  in  his  statement  that  his  best  judgment 
is  he  left  at  about  one  o’clock.  He  doesn’t  claim  to 
have  timed  it  to  the  minute;  he  had  no  reason  to  do 
so;  but  after  carefully  thinking  of  everything  that 
happened  before  and  afterwards,  his  opinion  is  he  left 
at  about  one  o’clock. 

Now,  1  :o8  is  “about  one  o’clock.”  Suppose  he  left 
at  1:08.  He  could  have  reached  the  comer  where 
this  witness  says  she  saw  him  at  1  :io.  It  takes  that 
street  car  approximately  ten  minutes  to  go  from  that 
corner  to  where  Frank  lives.  Mrs.  Levi  says  she 
saw  Frank  get  off  the  car  at  his  home  at  1 :20.  Mrs. 
Levi  is  no  kin  to  Frank.  She  was  looking  for  her  son 
on  that  car  and  saw  Frank  get  off  instead.  And 
Albert  McKnight,  the  State’s  prize  witness,  and  his 
wife  both  testify  they  saw  him  at  his  home  at  1 130. 

How  can  these  things  be  answered  with  common 
sense?  Your  Honor,  this  is  not  a  case  of  believing  the 
defendant  to  be  innocent;  we  are  demonstrating  his 
innocence. 

We  have  shown  that  the  little  Phagan  girl  didn’t 
get  to  the  factory  at  a  time  when  he  could  commit 
the  crime,  according  to  Conley.  We  have  shown  that 
Frank  left  there  before  the  moving  of  the  body  had 
ever  been  completed,  as  Conley  claims.  That  is  why 

29 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 

we  had  that  alibi  chart  made,  but  it  fell  on  deaf 
ears. 

Argument  and  demonstration  are  worthless  against 
a  vicious  mob.  Throw  truth  to  the  winds!  All  that 
is  needed  is  a  pack  of  wolves  surrounding  the  jury, 
thirsting  for  blood.  How  strange  it  is  that  people 
sometimes  reach  such  savage  depths! 

Once  down  here  at  the  county  jail  I  saw  a  negro 
hanged.  Peter  Daniels  was  his  name.  Such  a  dread¬ 
ful  spectacle  I  hope  never  to  see  again.  The  poor 
creature  asked  time  to  pray,  and  he  prayed  long  and 
loud.  He  then  asked  to  have  an  old  colored  woman 
who  was  present  come  up  and  sing,  “Swing  Low, 
Sweet  Chariot,”  and  they  raised  their  tremulous  voices 
in  that  song.  They  sang  one  verse,  two  verses,  three 
verses;  the  poor  wretch  trying  to  prolong  it  as  much 
as  possible,  and  then  he  pretended  to  fall  down  in  a 
faint  and  they  had  to  literally  hold  him  up  to  hang- 
him.  When  the  negro  was  praying  there  was  a  mur¬ 
mur  from  some  of  those  present  and  I  heard  them  say, 
“He  is  only  praying  for  time;  let’s  go  ask  the  sheriff 
to  hurry  up  with  the  hanging.”  That  was  their  spirit. 
The  lowest  passion  of  the  human  breast  is  this  thirst 
for  blood. 

The  only  way,  perhaps,  these  elements  of  character 
can  be  overcome,  is  to  let  Time  re-make  the  man. 
Just  as  in  every  seven  years  the  whole  human  system 
is  said  to  change — blood,  bone,  fleshy  tissue  and  all — 
so  it  is  that  a  man  may  change  mentally  and  morally 
with  the  passing  of  the  years. 

3° 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

The  trial  and  conviction  of  Leo  M.  Frank  on  the 
testimony  of  Jim  Conley,  shows  what  results  may 
sometimes  be  produced  when  you  have  a  ground¬ 
work  of  prejudice,  ignorance,  passion  and  excitement 
to  build  on  as  you  wish. 

On  one  side  is  a  man  of  education,  of  prominence,  of 
responsibility,  of  character,  whose  ancestors  are  peace¬ 
ful  people;  a  man  who  could  have  no  motive  to  mur¬ 
der  except  the  far-fetched  claim  of  the  Solicitor.  On 
the  other  side  is  a  negro  with  a  long  criminal  record, 
besotted  with  liquor,  proven  to  have  been  at  the  very 
place  where  he  could  with  lightning-like  rapidity  grab 
the  girl,  and  in  the  struggle  with  her  render  her  un¬ 
conscious,  rob  her  and  throw  her  into  the  cellar;  and 
afterwards  go  down  there  and  write  the  notes  that 
were  found  by  the  body,  that  are  a  part  and  parcel 
of  the  murder,  and  prove  themselves  to  have  been 
conceived  in  none  but  an  ignorant,  savage  mind. 

The  elevator  shaft  was  there,  open  and  yawning, 
right  in  that  dark  area  where  the  stairway  ends. 
That  is  the  place  where  the  evidence  shows  Conley 
was.  Conley  was  hard  up  for  money.  The  little  girl 
had  a  purse  which  has  never  been  found.  It  has  not 
been  found  because  Conley  stole  it;  and  the  little  girl 
was  found  down  in  the  cellar  because  Conley  threw 
her  there. 

The  circumstances  of  guilt  in  this  case  point  not  to 
Frank  but  to  Conley.  There  is  no  evidence  that 
Frank  had  anything  to  do  with  this  murder  except 
from  the  negro  himself. 


31 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


In  other  words,  you  get  dead  evidence  on  a  man, 
physical  evidence  showing  he  was  at  the  scene  of  the 
murder  and  that  he  hid  the  body;  he  is  a  debased 
character,  has  told  a  dozen  lies  about  it,  and  has  con¬ 
fessed  a  part  of  the  crime.  Yet,  in  order  to  excuse 
and  clear  himself,  he  brings  a  decent,  respectable  man 
into  it,  and  he — and  he  alone — places  upon  that  man 
the  vile  charge  of  perversion : — a  good  life  to  count  for 
nothing  and  the  circumstances  of  the  case  to  count  for 
nothing.  Conley,  on  the  one  hand,  is  not  even  in¬ 
dicted  for  the  crime;  and  Frank,  on  the  other,  is  sen¬ 
tenced  to  be  hanged.  It  is  enough  to  shock  the  con¬ 
science  of  humanity! 

But  Mr.  Dorsey  says,  Conley  is  sustained  by  some 
facts  and  circumstances  in  the  case.  Let  us  see  now 
what  Dorsey  says  it  is  that  sustains  Jim  Conley. 

Mr.  Dorsey  says: 

Our  proof  of  general  bad  character,  the  existence  of 
such  character  as  can  reasonably  be  supposed  to  cause 
one  to  commit  an  act  like  we  charge,  sustains  Jim  Conley. 
Our  proof  of  general  bad  character  as  to  lasciviousness, 
not  even  denied  by  a  single  witness,  sustains  Jim  Conley. 
Your  failure  to  cross-examine  and  develop  the  source  of 
information  of  these  girls  put  upon  the  stand  by  the  State — 
these  ‘ ‘  hair-brained  fanatics,  ’  ’  as  Mr.  Arnold  calls  them  with¬ 
out  rhyme  or  reason — sustains  Jim  Conley.  Your  failure 
to  cross-examine  our  character  witnesses  with  reference  to 
this  man’s  character  for  lasciviousness,  sustains  Jim  Conley. 

Now,  listen  to  that!  A  boy  on  the  street  who  had 
heard  a  group  of  men  say,  “Why,  I  believe  Frank  is 

32 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

a  pervert;  I  believe  Frank  killed  the  girl;  I  believe 
Frank  was  lascivious,”  could  come  in  and  swear  to 
the  same  bad  character  that  these  girls  swore  to,  and 
that  would  sustain  Jim  Conley  according  to  Mr. 
Dorsey.  That  would  sustain  him  in  his  story  about 
finding  the  body  and  in  his  grotesque  tale  about  the 
notes. 

These  girls  didn’t  have  to  know  anything  against 
Frank.  All  they  had  to  do  was  to  swear  what  they 
had  heard.  They  could  have  been  loaded  with  five 
thousand  slanders.  That  was  little  compared  with 
what  was  done  with  Minola  McKnight  and  Jim  Con¬ 
ley.  They  found  Conley  a  rough  mass  of  wood  and 
shaped  him  into  an  article  symmetrical  and  polished. 

In  the  name  of  fairness,  in  the  name  of  high-toned 
procedure,  in  the  name  of  the  gentle  men  of  this  good 
country,  and  the  old  fathers  of  the  State,  Ben  Hill, 
Bob  Toombs,  Alex  Stephens — in  the  name  of  men  that 
would  have  scorned  to  tread  upon  a  worm,  what  would 
you  say  of  a  proceeding  of  this  sort  in  Georgia? 

These  witnesses  knew  nothing  against  this  man  ex¬ 
cept  wild,  vague  rumors,  and  yet  every  question  we 
would  have  asked  on  that  line  would  have  been  used 
before  that  gaping  mob  against  us. 

Does  our  failure  to  cross-examine  them  sustain  Jim 
Conley  in  his  monstrous  tale  about  the  murder?  Why, 
if  you  can  sustain  an  accomplice  that  way,  all  you 
have  to  do  is  to  get  out  a  little  gossip  about  a  man, 
and  get  a  few  people  to  hear  that  gossip,  and  let  them 
get  confused  in  their  minds  about  the  time  when  they 

33 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


heard  it — whether  before  or  after  the  commission  of 
the  crime — and  put  them  on  the  stand  and  let  them 
say  the  man’s  reputation  is  bad.  In  other  words, 
you  might  charge  a  man  with  a  crime  at  the  North 
Pole,  and  witnesses  who  swore  his  character  was  bad 
at  the  North  Pole  would  sustain  a  man  who  swore  he 
committed  a  crime  at  the  North  Pole.  That’s  just 
his  argument  exactly.  Why,  anything  sustains  ac¬ 
cording  to  that.  Mr.  Dorsey  might  just  as  well  argue 
that  Frank  had  hands,  that  he  could  have  tied  a  knot 
in  a  rope  and  could  have  choked  a  girl  to  death;  that 
sustains  Jim  Conley.  Frank  has  legs,  he  has  hands, 
he  could  have  pulled  the  elevator  rope  and  gone  down 
to  the  basement.  That  sustains  Jim  Conley  if  Dor¬ 
sey’s  reasoning  is  good. 

The  defense  put  up  numbers  of  witnesses — upright, 
ho.norable  people — who  had  associated  with  Frank  in 
his  daily  life,  people  who  knew  him  well  and  had 
elected  him  president  of  a  grand  charitable  organiza¬ 
tion  here,  and  these  people  testified  that  his  character 
was  good. 

But  let’s  go  on  with  what  Dorsey  says  sustains 
Conley.  He  says: 

His  relations  with  Miss  Rebecca  Carson — he  is  shown 
to  have  gone  into  the  ladies’  dressing  room  even  in  broad 
daylight  and  during  work  hours,  by  witnesses  whose 
names  I  cannot  recall  right  now — sustains  Jim  Conley! 

Where  did  these  witnesses  come  from?  They  came 
from  the  same  hands  that  handed  Jim  Conley  to  the 

34 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

court.  They  came  from  hands  that  were  bold  enough 
to  take  Minola  McKnight  and  endeavor  to  warp  her 
testimony.  Class  hatred  was  played  on  here — the 
discharged  employee  class.  They  played  on  the 
enmity  the  poor  feel  against  the  wealthy — they  gave 
a  bid  to  discontent. 

Those  little  girls  who  had  been  discharged — doubt¬ 
less  discharged  by  this  Miss  Carson,  a  forelady,  and 
glad  to  say  anything  against  her — testify  that  in 
broad  daylight,  during  work  hours,  Frank  went  into 
a  room  with  her  and  shut  the  door.  The  proof  shows 
there  was  no  lock  on  the  door. 

Suppose  he  did  go  in  there  and  shut  the  door.  He 
may  have  wanted  to  talk  with  her  about  the  work. 
He  may  have  wanted  to  go  over  the  question  of 
whether  the  girls  were  flirting  from  that  room — a 
thousand  and  one  things  he  may  have  wanted  to  talk 
with  her  about. 

It  is  horrible  that  in  work  hours,  in  broad  daylight, 
a  man  in  charge  of  a  factory  couldn’t  take  the  fore¬ 
lady  of  a  department  into  a  room  without  any  lock 
to  it,  and  shut  the  door,  without  such  a  vicious  con¬ 
struction  being  placed  upon  the  act. 

Now,  Dorsey  says  that  sustains  Jim  Conley. 

Again,  he  says: 

Your  own  witness,  Miss  Jackson,  who  says  that  this 
libertine  and  rake  came  when  those  girls  were  in  there 
reclining  and  lounging  after  they  had  finished  their  piece¬ 
work,  and  tells  of  the  sardonic  grin  that  lit  his  counte¬ 
nance,  sustains  Jim  Conley.  And  Miss  Jackson’s  asser- 

35 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


tion  that  she  heard  of  three  or  four  other  instances,  and 
that  complaint  was  made  to  the  foreladies  in  charge,  sus¬ 
tains  Jim  Conley. 

Now,  as  I  understand  this  Miss  Jackson,  she  says 
Frank  put  his  head  in  the  door  of  the  lounging  room; 
and  she  said  also  (I  believe  she  is  the  one  who  said  it) 
that  whenever  those  girls  were  lounging  and  loafing 
in  there  and  Frank  came  in,  they  all  proceeded  to 
their  work,  too.  A  man  who  employs  scores  of 
women  has  to  be  around  them  occasionally  in  justice 
to  himself  to  see  that  they  are  doing  their  duty,  even 
though  they  complain  of  his  presence.  The  sardonic 
grin  is  Mr.  Dorsey’s  conclusion:  none  of  these  girls 
testified  to  it.  It  is  perfectly  apparent  that  Frank,  on 
these  occasions,  was  attempting  no  familiarity  with 
these  girls  but  was  only  trying  to  see  that  they  did 
their  work,  and  were  not  idling  their  time  away. 
Surely  a  woman  isn’t  so  absolutely  sacred  that  you 
can’t  ask  her  to  perform  her  contract  as  she  has 
agreed  to  do;  and  if  she  isn’t  doing  it,  ask  her  why, 
and  find  out  why.  Ought  this  to  be  held  against  the 
defendant?  And  can  it  be  fairly  said  to  sustain  Con¬ 
ley’s  statement  that  Frank  is  guilty  of  murder? 

Says  Mr.  Dorsey: 

Miss  Kitchens,  the  lady  from  the  fourth  floor,  whom, 
in  spite  of  the  repeated  assertions  made  by  Mr.  Arnold, 
you  didn’t  produce;  and  her  account  of  this  man’s  con¬ 
duct  when  he  came  in  there  on  these  girls  whom  he  should 
have  protected  and  when  he  should  have  been  the  last 
man  to  go  in  that  room,  sustains  Jim  Conley. 

36 


Mr.  Arnold’s  Address  to  the  Court 

What  did  he  ever  do?  Opened  the  door  of  this 
room,  after  work  hours,  as  he  had  a  right  to  do. 
There  was  no  bath  or  toilet  in  there.  It  was  a  room 
where  before  work  hours  these  girls  simply  changed 
clothes  and  if  they  were  there  at  any  other  time,  they 
were  presinned  to  be  only  lounging,  and  some  of  them 
had  been  flirting  from  the  window  into  the  street. 

Have  we  come  to  the  point  when  inferences  that  are 
unfair  and  things  that  are  wrong  can  lead  us  to  take 
a  man’s  life?  Shall  the  fact  of  the  crime  be  allowed 
to  rob  us  of  our  reason?  “Wasn’t  this  a  dreadful 
crime?”  is  a  question  often  asked.  Indeed,  it  was 
a  dreadful  crime.  A  man  said  to  me  the  other  day, 
“Ought  he  not  suffer  who  did  that  deed?”  I  said 
“Yes,  he  ought,  but  if  you,  my  friend,  were  charged 
with  it,  wouldn’t  you  want  it  proved  you  were  guilty 
before  the  dreadful  features  of  the  crime  were  even 
considered?” 

Some  people  seem  unable  to  distinguish  between 
these  separate  questions.  The  horror  of  the  crime 
isn’t  the  question;  the  choking  of  that  innocent  child 
to  death  isn’t  the  question.  The  question  is :  Who 
did  it?  And  has  it  been  proved  as  the  law  requires? 

Hear  Dorsey  again : 

Darley  and  Mattie  Smith, — as  to  what  they  did  even 
on  the  morning  of  Saturday,  April  26th,— even  going  into 
the  minutest  details,  sustains  Jim  Conley. 

He  says  Darley  and  Mattie  Smith,  going  down  the 
steps  together  at  half  past  nine,  sustains  Jim  Conley. 

37 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


He  might  as  well  have  said  Judge  Roan  was  sitting 
on  the  bench  hearing  motions  that  Saturday,  and  that 
sustains  Jim  Conley;  or  the  Southern  train  gets  in 
here  at  4:45  from  New  York,  and  that  sustains  Jim 
Conley. 

Dorsey  continues: 

McCrary,  the  old  negro  that  you  praised  so  highly,  the 
man  that  keeps  his  till  filled  by  money  paid  by  the 
National  Pencil  Company,  as  to  where  he  put  his  stack 
of  hay  and  the  time  of  day  he  drew  his  pay,  sustains 
Jim  Conley. 

McCrary  never  saw  Jim  Conley  there  that  day  at 
all.  He  denied  having  any  conversation  with  him  as 
Jijn  Conley  says  he  did.  McCrary  tells  about  getting 
to  the  factory  at  a  certain  time  that  morning — half 
past  eight — and  Mr.  Dorsey,  in  his  roundabout  exami¬ 
nation  of  him,  undertook  to  prove  that  he  got  there 
a  little  later.  Now,  he  figures  out  that  sustains  Jim 
Conley. 

Dorsey  says  again: 

Monteen  Stover — as  to  the  easy  walking  shoes  she  wore 
when  she  went  up  into  this  man  Frank’s  room,  at  the 
very  minute  he  was  back  there  in  the  metal  room  with 
this  poor,  little,  unfortunate  girl,  sustains  Jim  Conley. 

I  reckon  that  would  sustain  Jim !  They  had  found 
out  she  had  easy  walking  shoes  and  Conley’s  lie  was 
just  made  to  fit  the  shoes.  Either  that,  or  else  the 
negro  with  lust  and  cupidity  in  his  bosom  was  watch- 

33 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

ing  those  little  girls  so  closely  that  he  noticed  even  her 
shoes  and  stockings. 

Not  only  does  Monteen  Stover  not  sustain  Conley, 
but  she  proves  the  absurdity  of  his  story  that  he  was 
“watching”  for  Frank,  because  he  could  have  kept 
her  out  by  saying  Frank  was  not  there;  yet  he  let  her 
go  in  there,  knowing,  according  to  his  own  story,  that 
Frank  had  a  girl  in  there  and  had  taken  her  back  to 
the  metal  room,  and  that  the  girl  had  screamed. 

How  dreadful,  how  unjust  is  this  argument — to  cite 
these  circumstances  as  evidence  of  Frank’s  guilt. 
That  “watching”  story  is  preposterous.  What  good 
could  Conley  have  done  by  “watching”?  Conley 
would  have  had  no  right  at  any  of  the  “watching” 
episodes  that  he  says  took  place  before  Jan.  i, 
1913,  to  lock  the  front  door  because  at  that  time  that 
was  used  by  the  Clark  Woodenware  Company  and 
the  people  of  the  pencil  factory  jointly.  What  white 
man  could  this  negro  have  kept  out  anyhow?  And 
who  is  it  that  would  not  have  had  his  suspicions 
aroused  had  Conley  attempted  to  stop  him,  or  to 
give  a  signal  to  Frank  that  somebody  was  coming? 
If  Frank  was  engaged  in  these  practices  his  best 
and  safest  plan  would  have  been  to  bolt  the  door  of 
the  stairway  that  led  up  to  the  second  floor,  and 
thereby  kept  everybody  out.  Furthermore,  there  is 
no  evidence  that  Frank  had  any  engagement  on  this 
day  that  would  have  made  “watching”  necessary. 
There  was  nothing  to  “watch”  for. 

But  to  bolster  up  the  story  of  the  notes,  some  rea- 

39 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


son  had  to  be  given  why  Conley  and  Frank  were  thus 
coming  in  contact  in  a  transaction  that  would  ordi¬ 
narily  admit  of  no  confidants;  and  the  “watching” 
story  was  thus  bom.  The  lie  was  clumsy,  but 
necessary. 

And  what  a  wonderful  watchman  was  Conley! 
This  timid  little  girl,  Monteen  Stover,  came  in  and 
tripped  up  the  stairs  like  an  antelope,  and  he  let  her 
in  at  the  very  time  he  ought  not  to  have  let  anybody 
in.  The  proof  of  the  pudding  is  in  the  eating.  He 
says  he  was  not  asleep  when  she  came  in.  If  there 
ever  was  a  time  when  his  boss  needed  protection,  it 
was  when  he  tipped  back  to  that  metal  room  with  the 
little  girl  and  when  the  little  girl  had  screamed  a  wild 
scream.  Why,  even  to  Conley’s  dull,  besotted  intel¬ 
lect,  it  would  have  said:  “Mr.  Frank  and  that  girl  are 
having  trouble  back  there;  I  must  watch  carefully  for 
him  now.”  And  right  at  that  time  he  let  Mon  teen 
Stover  in  there — this  faithful  watchman! — and  Mr. 
Dorsey  says  that  sustains  Jim  Conley: — Monteen 
Stover! 

Mr.  Dorsey  continues: 

Monteen  Stover,  when  she  tells  you  that  she  found 
nobody  in  that  office,  sustains  Jim  Conley. 

Yes,  and  she  clears  Frank,  too;  because  if  Epps 
tells  the  truth,  if  the  schedule  of  the  street  car  tells 
the  truth,  if  the  men  in  charge  of  the  car  tell  the  truth, 
Mary  Phagan  had  not  reached  the  office  at  that  time 
and  had  not  even  reached  town  at  that  time. 


40 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

Mr.  Dorsey  further  says: 

Lemmie  Quinn — your  own  dear  Lemmie — as  to  the  time 
he  went  up  and  went  down  into  the  streets  with  the  evidence 
of  Mrs.  Freeman  and  Corinthia  Hall,  sustains  Jim  Conley. 

He  didn’t  show  how  that  sustained  Jim  Conley. 
Lemmie  said  he  got  to  the  office  at  12:20  and  was  at 
the  Busy  Bee  Restaurant  at  about  12:30.  Does  that 
sustain  Jim  Conley?  Mrs.  Freeman,  formerly  Miss 
Emma  Clark,  and  Corinthia  Hall,  both  say  they  saw 
Lemmie  Quinn  at  the  Busy  Bee  Restaurant  and  talked 
with  him.  Quinn  had  already  been  at  Frank’s  office  at 
12 :2o  and  only  Frank  was  there.  Quinn  went  down  to 
the  cafe  about  12 :30  and  met  Mrs.  Freeman  and  Corin¬ 
thia  Hall.  The  two  women  left  Quinn  at  the  cafe  and 
went  up  into  Frank’s  office  to  use  the  phone,  finding 
Frank  there  alone.  This  evidence  corroborates  Quinn. 
There  is  complete  harmony  in  this  testimony.  Frank 
also  in  his  statement  shows  that  Quinn  came  in  and  left, 
and  afterwards  the  two  women  came  in  and  used  the 
phone.  How  can  that  sustain  Jim  Conley?  Mr.  Dorsey 
just  yelled  that  it  sustained  him.  He  is  yelling  that 
everything  sustains  him.  The  air  sustains  him;  the 
courthouse  sustains  him;  the  sun  when  it  rose  this 
morning  sustains  him;  when  it  sets  to-night  it  will 
sustain  him;  these  reporters  sitting  over  there  sustain 
him;  everything  in  and  out  of  court  sustains  him. 

Mr.  Dorsey  further  says: 

Frank’s  statement  that  he  would  consult  his  attorneys 
about  Quinn’s  statement  that  he  had  visited  him  in  his 
office,  sustains  Jim  Conley. 


4i 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


You  remember  what  that  was?  Quinn  had  talked 
with  Frank  and  told  him  that  he  recollected  seeing 
him  that  day,  April  26th,  at  about  12:20.  That  was 
the  substance  of  Frank’s  reply  as  I  recollect  it:  “Well, 
I’ll  tell  my  lawyers  about  what  you  say  and  they  will 
pass  on  whether  it  is  of  any  value.”  Poor  Frank 
didn’t  know.  He  knew  he  was  innocent;  but  he  did 
not  know  the  exact  value  of  the  information  that 
Quinn  gave  him  that  he  had  seen  him  in  his  office  at 
12:20,  and  in  his  innocence  he  said,  “Well,  I’ll  tell  it 
to  my  lawyers  and  see  what  use  they  can  make  of  it” 
— and  that  is  used  against  him. 

Why,  if  he  had  beon  a  guilty  man  and  Quinn  had 
gone  to  him  with  a  lie  about  seeing  him  at  12:20,  he 
would  have  jumped  on  it  like  a  duck  on  a  June  bug. 
He  would  have  seen  in  a  minute  the  use  he  could  put 
it  to,  and  he  never  would  in  a  fair,  conservative  way 
have  said,  “I’ll  tell  it  to  my  lawyers  and  see  what  use 
they  can  make  of  it.” 

Frank  was  at  sea  about  the  wretched  charge.  He 
didn’t  know  the  depths  of  the  malevolence  that  was 
clustering  around  him  at  the  time. 

Mr.  Dorsey  goes  on: 

Dalton,  sustained  as  to  his  life  for  the  last  ten  years 
here  in  this  community  and  in  DeKalb,  when  he  stated 
he  had  seen  Jim  watching  before  on  Saturdays  and  holi¬ 
days,  sustains  Jim  Conley. 

Dalton!  In  this  case  they  seem  to  have  seined  the 
lowest  strata  of  society  for  the  ugliest,  dirtiest  reptiles 

42 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

that  swim  and  move  about  in  the  ooze  of  the  bottom. 
It  is  hard  to  describe  Dalton — that  mangy,  leprous 
creature  which  this  prosecution,  representing  law  and 
order,  presented  to  the  public.  The  profert  of  him 
is  all  that  will  do  him  justice.  He  had  a  face  like  a 
mud  cat.  You  could  tell  his  habitat  was  in  the 
filth. 

Dalton  began  as  a  thief  and  ended  as  an  adulterer 
with  Daisy  Hopkins  in  the  pencil  factory.  He  was 
proud  of  it  on  the  stand  and  he  said  that  Daisy  was 
a  peach.  We  brought  in  Daisy  just  to  show  what 
sort  of  peach  she  was.  Daisy  said  he  lied,  of  course ; 
that  she  never  had  been  with  him  in  the  pencil  fac¬ 
tory,  and  that  there  was  not  a  word  of  truth  in  what 
he  said  from  its  beginning  to  its  end.  Of  course,  she 
is  a  poor,  fallen  creature.  I  don’t  suppose  any  other 
kind  would  care  to  come  within  a  thousand  miles  of 
Dalton. 

The  other  women  Dalton  named  as  having  known, 
in  that  factory  also  said  he  lied.  His  fellow  citizens 
from  Gwinnett  and  Walton  counties  said  he  was  un¬ 
worthy  of  belief.  But  they  produced  two  or  three 
kind-hearted  fellows  who  said,  “Oh,  well;  he’s  re¬ 
formed;  he’s  j’ined  the  church”;  and  “while  the  lamp 
holds  out  to  burn,  the  vilest  sinner  may  return.”  I 
never  did  have  much  confidence  in  the  reformation 
of  such  fellows.  You  can  cure  a  drunkard  sometimes 
— that’s  weakness  in  the  flesh — but  with  a  fellow  like 
Dalton  it’s  different.  The  evidence  indicates  that  if 
he  ever  did  reform  he  fell  back  into  the  outer  darkness 

43 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


right  away.  His  conduct  in  this  case  shows  he  is  a 
backslider  now. 

But  even  if  he  did  slip  in  that  factory  with  the  Hop¬ 
kins  woman,  he  said  he  never  saw  Frank  do  anything 
wrong  and  never  saw  any  indication  of  it. 

Dorsey  says: 

Daisy  Hopkins’  awful  reputation  and  the  statement  of 
Jim  that  he  had  seen  her  go  into  that  factory  with  Dalton 
and  down  that  scuttle  hole  to  the  place  where  that  cot  is 
shown  to  have  been,  sustains  Jim  Conley. 

Daisy  Hopkins  says  it  is  all  a  wretched  lie,  and  it 
just  gets  back  to  that  delightful  gentleman  Dalton 
there  sustaining  him.  But  Dorsey  says  Daisy  Hop¬ 
kins’  reputation  sustains  him.  Well,  there  are  many 
lewd  women  in  Atlanta  and  the  reputation  of  each 
one  sustains  Jim  Conley,  according  to  that  reasoning. 
A  thousand  in  Chattanooga,  I  suppose,  sustain  Jim 
Conley;  a  million  such  women,  I  guess,  in  New  York, 
sustain  Jim:— just  as  much  sense  in  one  as  in  the 
other! 

Mr.  Dorsey  further  argues: 

The  blood  on  the  second  floor,  testified  to  by  numerous 
witnesses,  sustains  Jim  Conley.  The  appearance  of  the 
blood,  the  physical  condition  of  the  floor  when  the  blood 
was  found  Monday  morning,  sustains  Jim  Conley. 

An  inventive  gentleman  by  the  name  of  Barrett 
claimed  to  have  found  blood  spots  on  the  second  floor. 
They  were  chipped  up  and  sent  to  a  chemist  for  analy¬ 
sis.  Only  in  one  of  the  spots  did  he  find  a  single 

44 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

trace  of  blood,  and  he  swore  that  one-eightieth  part  of 
one  drop  could  have  made  it  all,  and  that  it  may  have 
been  there  for  years.  One  witness  testified  that  once 
a  man  was  hurt  and  bled  at  the  very  spot.  No  man 
knows  in  which  of  various  ways,  or  when,  that  blood 
got  there. 

Oh,  what  a  colossal  fake  was  here  attempted  to  be 
foisted  on  court  and  jury!  Its  purpose  was  to  show 
that  the  girl  was  killed  on  the  second  floor,  and  killed 
by  Frank.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  negro  could  just 
as  well  have  killed  her  in  the  metal  room  as  Frank 
could: — better.  If  the  little  girl  had  happened  to  go 
back  there  to  the  toilet  and  Conley  had  come  to  the 
head  of  the  stairs  and  seen  her  go  back,  he  could  have 
followed,  and  in  the  quiet  of  that  room  perpetrated 
this  wrong  upon  her.  It  would  have  been  out  of  view 
from  Frank’s  office  and  could  have  been  done  without 
Frank’s  knowledge. 

No,  the  blood  spot  fake  does  not  sustain  Conley. 
Where  Conley  says  he  first  found  the  body,  there  was 
no  blood.  The  presumption  is  this  is  where  the 
struggle  took  place.  The  absence  of  blood  here  im¬ 
peaches  him  more  than  its  presence  elsewhere  could 
sustain  him.  If  there  was  to  be  any  blood,  here  was 
the  place. 

Remember,  too,  that  blood  spot  was  found  before 
Jim  ever  said  he  dropped  the  body  there.  Jim  just 
fitted  in  with  his  manufactured  tale.  Why,  any  liar 
on  earth  can  be  sustained  by  some  well-known  physi¬ 
cal  fact  that  he  runs  across  in  the  course  of  his  lying. 

45 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


If  an  accomplice  in  a  murder  says:  “On  my  way  home 
I  saw  Bill  Jones  kill  Tom  Smith;  I  passed  through  the 
capitol  and  the  capitol  had  marble  floors,”  and  an¬ 
other  witness  says:  “Yes,  the  capitol  has  marble 
floors,”  Mr.  Dorsey  would  say:  “Oh,  that  sustains 
him;  he  passed  through  the  capitol  and  the  floors  were 
marble  and  he  said  it.” 

Further,  Mr.  Dorsey  argues: 

The  testimony  of  Holloway  which  he  gave  in  the  affi¬ 
davit  before  he  appreciated  the  importance,  coupled  with 
the  statement  of  Boots  Rogers  that  that  elevator  box  was 
unlocked,  sustains  Jim  Conley. 

He  doesn’t  say  what  part  of  Holloway’s  evidence 
he  is  talking  about;  but  Your  Honor  will  remember 
they  got  Holloway  down  there  and  took  an  affidavit 
from  him;  but  Holloway  on  the  stand  said:  “When  I 
made  that  affidavit  I  didn’t  remember  about  sawing 
some  lumber  for  the  man  up  on  the  fourth  floor;  I 
now  remember  that  I  got  some  lumber  and  went  in 
and  got  the  key  to  that  motor  box  and  unlocked  it 
and  never  locked  it  again.  I  had  to  do  that  to  saw 
the  lumber,  and  I  didn’t  think  of  that  at  the  time; 
I  was  simply  testifying  to  the  custom.”  And  Den¬ 
ham  said  he  did  saw  the  lumber  for  him.  This  shows 
that  the  elevator  was  not  locked  and  disputes  Conley’s 
statement  that  Frank  unlocked  it. 

Now,  Dorsey  says  that  sustains  Jim  Conley;  how, 
I  don’t  figure  out. 

He  goes  on: 


46 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

Ivey  Jones,  the  man  who  says  he  met  him  in  close 
proximity  to  the  pencil  factory  on  the  day  this  murder 
was  committed,  the  time  he  says  he  left  that  place,  sus¬ 
tains  Jim  Conley. 

Does  he,  Your  Honor?  Ivey  Jones  met  Jim  Conley 
at  a  quarter  to  two.  Does  not  that  sustain  as  strongly 
our  theory  that  the  negro  killed  the  girl?  Our  theory 
is  also  supported  by  Conley’s  confession  that  he 
handled  the  body,  by  that  evidence  of  his  handwrit¬ 
ing,  and  by  his  confession  that  he  wrote  the  incrimi¬ 
nating  notes  found  by  the  body.  He  was  there  that 
morning  and  Ivey  Jones  saw  him  at  a  quarter  to  two, 
just  two  or  three  hundred  yards  from  the  pencil 
factory.  He  had  just  left  the  factory  and,  of  course, 
he  disposed  of  the  body  after  Mrs.  White  left  there. 

Conley  killed  this  little  girl  when  she  went  down  the 
steps.  He  got  in  a  struggle  with  her  probably  over 
that  mesh  bag,  about  12:15  or  12:20 — somewhere 
along  there — just  before  Lemmie  Quinn  came  in.  She 
probably  injured  herself  in  the  struggle;  perhaps  was 
rendered  unconscious.  It  was  but  the  work  of  a 
moment  to  throw  her  down  into  that  cellar.  He 
didn’t  go  right  then  into  the  cellar  and  move  the  body. 
That  perhaps  would  take  some  time  and  perhaps  he 
thought  she  was  living,  and  he  had  a  more  diabolical 
purpose  in  view.  He  waits  until  Frank  leaves,  and 
Mrs.  White  leaves  at  one  o’clock,  and  he  goes  down 
into  that  cellar  and  finishes  the  work.  He  attempts 
to  violate  her  person,  and  he  had  doubtless  finished 
by  a  quarter  to  two. 


47 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


And  there  was  no  purpose  on  Conley’s  part  to  burn 
the  body  because  Conley  had  no  control  of  the  heat¬ 
ing  apparatus.  Conley’s  method  of  throwing  people 
off  the  track  was  by  the  notes.  Conley  never  thought 
anybody  saw  him  there  that  morning;  he  was  in  that 
dark  place  half  hidden  by  those  boxes.  The  evidence 
shows  that  the  officers  found  signs  indicating  that 
something  had  been  dragged  on  the  ground  from  the 
bottom  of  the  elevator  shaft  to  where  the  body  lay. 
This  physical  fact  tends  to  support  the  theory  that 
Conley  threw  the  girl  down  the  shaft  and  later  dragged 
the  body  away ;  and  to  contradict  Conley’s  testimony 
that  he  and  Frank  took  the  body  down  in  the  elevator 
and  that  from  the  elevator  he  carried  the  body  on  his 
shoulder  to  the  place  where  it  was  found  at  the  saw 
dust  pile. 

Great  God !  When  you  think  how  much  closer  this 
negro  was  to  the  tragedy — how  he  confessed  his  part 
in  it — how  his  character  coincides  with  it, — how  the 
community  or  the  jury  can  let  just  his  making  this  infa¬ 
mous  charge  carry  conviction  against  a  lifetime  of  good 
conduct,  is  almost  beyond  the  imagination  of  mankind. 

Mr.  Dorsey  proceeds: 

Albert  McKnight,  who  testified  as  to  the  length  of 
time  that  this  man  Frank  remained  at  home,  and  the 
fact  that  he  hurried  back  to  the  factory,  sustains  Jim 
Conley. 

Does  he?  Does  Albert  McKnight  sustain  him? 
Albert  McKnight  says,  “At  1:30  I  saw  Mr.  Frank 

48 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

in  his  dining  room.”  That  contradicts  Conley  abso¬ 
lutely  because  Conley  says  he  and  Frank  were  at  the 
factory  at  1:30;  yet  my  friend,  without  telling  the 
jury  how,  yells  at  them,  “  That  sustains  Jim  Conley.” 

No,  Your  Honor;  liar  though  McKnight  was  in 
many  respects,  he  does  not  sustain  Conley. 

What  next  does  Dorsey  say  sustains  him?  He 
says: 

The  repudiated  affidavit — made  to  the  police  in  the 
presence  of  Craven  and  Pickett — of  Minola  McKnight 
— the  affidavit  which  George  Gordon,  the  lawyer,  sat 
there  and  allowed  her  to  make,  although  he  knew  he 
could  get  a  habeas  corpus  and  take  her  within  thirty 
minutes  out  of  the  custody  of  the  police,  sustains  Jim 
Conley. 

On  the  contrary,  I  say  Minola  McKnight’s  affidavit 
sustains  our  contention  that  the  whole  case  is  a  fabri¬ 
cation.  It  shows  like  the  flash  of  lightning  in  the 
black  sky  a  dark  transaction  that  otherwise  would 
have  remained  always  dark,  and  makes  one  wonder 
how  many  similar  things  were  done  in  this  case. 

How  does  he  figure  out  that  Minola’s  affidavit  sus¬ 
tains  Jim  Conley?  Can  you  see  anything  in  that  ex¬ 
cept  the  arrest  of  a  negro  woman,  illegally,  without  a 
warrant,  after  she  had  voluntarily  made  a  truthful 
statement;  then  the  bringing  of  her  to  the  Solicitor’s 
office;  the  attempt  to  get  her  to  agree  with  her  hus¬ 
band  who  was  in  the  hands  of  two  men  here;  then 
taking  her  to  the  station  house  and  putting  her  behind 
bars  and  forcing  her  to  make  the  affidavit?  Is  there 

49 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


anything  in  Minola’s  affidavit  except  duress  and  vio¬ 
lation  of  law  by  officers?  How  does  that  corroborate 
Jim  Conley? 

Mr.  Dorsey  says : 

The  use  of  that  cord,  found  in  abundance,  to  choke  this 
girl  to  death,  sustains  Jim  Conley. 

Couldn’t  Jim  Conley  use  the  cord  as  well  as  Frank? 
It  had  that  loop  in  it  always.  It  was  tied  around  a 
bundle  of  pencils.  That  was  its  natural  and  normal 
condition.  That  cord  was  found  from  the  cellar  to 
the  garret.  Jim  Conley  knew  where  they  hung  on 
the  second  floor.  What  is  here  to  sustain  Conley’s 
story  that  Frank,  and  not  he,  killed  the  girl? 

He  goes  on: 

The  existence  of  the  notes  alone  sustains  Jim  Conley 
because  no  negro  in  the  history  of  the  race,  after  having 
perpetrated  rape  or  robbery,  ever  wrote  a  note  to  cover 
up  the  crime. 

How  does  he  know  that?  Jim  Conley  could  write. 
He  admits  he  wrote  these  notes.  When  he  admits  he 
wrote  the  notes,  that,  pritna  facie,  ought  to  disprove 
everything  he  states  and  ought  to  put  a  strong  bur¬ 
den  on  him  of  explaining  how  he  came  to  write  them 
at  somebody  else’s  dictation,  and  to  prove  it  by  some¬ 
thing  beyond  his  mere  ipse  dixit. 

Conley  says  that  Frank’s  intention  was  to  bum 
the  body  to  conceal  the  crime,  and  that  he  was  to 
come  back  later  and  help  him  do  it;  and  yet  that 
Frank,  with  this  thought  uppermost  in  his  mind, 

50 


Mr.  Arnold’s  Address  to  the  Court 

conceived  the  additional  idea  of  these  notes  to  be 
placed  beside  the  body  and  dictated  them  to  him  and 
he  wrote  them.  Why  were  both  things  done? 

Conley  sees  he  must  fix  up  an  explanation  for  this 
and  he  says  the  notes  were  written  so  that  if  he  never 
came  back  to  bum  the  body  the  notes  would  explain 
the  killing.  Yet  Frank  had  no  reason  to  believe  the 
negro  would  not  come  back.  Was  ever  an  explana¬ 
tion  more  preposterous?  Don’t  you  know  that  if 
Frank  intended  to  bum  the  body  he  never  would 
have  written  the  notes?  Don’t  you  know  the  notes 
were  the  last  explanation  of  how  the  killing  occurred, 
and  were  intended  by  the  ignorant  man  who  wrote 
them  to  stay  by  the  body  until  it  was  found? 

Now,  burning  a  body  is  a  thing  that  would  occur 
to  any  intelligent  mind  as  a  way  to  destroy  evidence. 
But  to  conjure  up  these  notes  as  a  way  to  hide  the 
crime  is  as  far  from  the  educated  mind  as  something 
connected  with  witchcraft  would  be.  These  notes  are 
negro  notes  from  beginning  to  end — in  thought,  in 
composition,  in  everything.  The  savage  mind  acts  in 
strange,  devious,  peculiar  ways;  the  educated  mind 
does  not. 

The  one  contention  in  this  case  that  appeals  the 
least  to  any  man  with  common  sense  and  fairness,  is 
that  the  verbiage  of  these  notes  is  Frank’s,  and  not 
Conley’s;  that  Frank,  a  Northern  man,  highly  edu¬ 
cated,  whose  knowledge  of  the  language  is  wide,  but 
with  very  little  knowledge  of  negroes,  almost  a 
stranger  here,  without  any  aid  from  anybody,  could 

5i 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


get  up  notes  like  these.  Never  could  it  have  hap¬ 
pened  in  a  thousand  years. 

Ignorance  conjures  up  far-fetched  ideas  and  con¬ 
clusions  unconceived  of  by  the  intelligent  brain. 
These  notes  professed  to  be  a  statement  from  the 
girl  herself  explaining  how  she  was  killed  and  who 
did  it.  They  are  idiotic  and  ridiculous,  except  to  an 
ignorant,  darkened  mind. 

Take  the  expression  “night  witch,”  in  one  of  the 
notes.  I  don’t  believe  there  is  a  white  man  on  God’s 
earth  who  would  have  known  what  that  expression 
meant;  but  a  negro  did  interpret  it. 

Here  we  have  a  note  so  obscure,  so  couched  in  the 
dark  vernacular  of  the  negro — he  says  it  was  all  dic¬ 
tated  by  Frank,  too — that  our  Southern  policemen 
who  corral  these  negroes  daily,  who  deal  with  them 
and  who  play  with  them  like  you  would  with  cards 
on  a  table,  can’t  understand  it.  Every  one  is  groping 
in  the  darkness  until  Newt  Lee  sees  it.  Newt  Lee, 
a  negro  whose  mental  operations  are  the  same  as  Jim 
Conley’s,  says,  “That  means  me,  boss;  I’m  the  night 
watchman.” 

A  white  man  goes  by  his  intelligence,  by  his  logic, 
by  his  discernment;  a  negro  goes  largely  by  his  in¬ 
stinct,  and,  occasionally,  it  is  strikingly  correct. 

During  the  great  Civil  War,  when  the  tracks  were 
torn  up  and  the  mails  couldn’t  go  by  railway,  when 
the  telegraph  wires  were  cut  and  there  was  no  quick 
way  of  communication,  the  negroes  often  heard  of 
great  battles  in  Virginia  and  Tennessee  long  before 

52 


37  &  39  SOUTH  FORSYTH  ST. 


Atlanta,  Ga.„ 


190 _ 


PUT  THIS  ORDER  HUMBER  OH  YOUR  BILL. 


An  exact  reproduction  of  one  of  the  two  notes  that  were  found  by  the  body 
Mary  Phagan,  with  the  elimination  of  two  words  which  it  was  thought  proper 
omit  from  this  publication. 


The  Second  One  of  the  “  Murder  Notes  ” 


A  facsimile  illustration  of  the  second  one  of  the  two  notes  that  were  found  near 
-  body  of  the  dead  girl. 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

the  white  people '  ever  heard  of  them.  The  news 
travelled  from  hill  to  hill,  from  dale  to  dale,  in  some 
way  through  that  under-strata  of  the  population. 

Your  Honor,  it  is  by  Jim  Conley’s  evidence  alone 
that  Frank  is  charged  with  having  had  anything  to  do 
with  the  writing  of  these  notes.  How  does  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  the  notes  sustain  Conley? 

Further  on  Mr.  Dorsey  states: 

The  note  paper  on  which  it  was  written — paper  found  in 
abundance  on  the  office  floor  and  near  the  office  of  this 
man  Frank — sustains  Jim  Conley. 

How?  Conley  knew  just  as  well  where  all  the 
paper  in  the  building  was  as  Frank  did.  That  kind 
of  paper  was  found  down  in  the  cellar.  It  was  used 
by  all  the  foreladies  of  the  floors.  Conley  had  a  pen¬ 
cil.  He  could  have  gotten  the  paper  anywhere  in  the 
factory.  The  evidence  clearly  showed  this.  Now, 
how  does  the  paper  sustain  Conley? 

Dorsey  argues: 

The  diction  of  the  notes  "that  negro  did  this,”  and  old 
Jim  throughout  his  statement  says  “I  done,”  sustains 
Jim  Conley. 

Oh,  what  a  trap  was  here  laid  for  us! 

Conley  was  loaded  on  that,  but  while  he  did  go  out 
of  his  way  a  number  of  times  to  say  "I  done,”  and 
was  very  particular  about  it,  yet  he  had  had  just 
enough  schooling  to  use  the  word  "did,”  and  he  used 
it  many  times  as  he  gave  his  evidence;  and,  of  course, 
when  writing,  one  is  more  accurate  than  when  speaking. 

53 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


Now,  this  record  shows  that  Conley  in  his  evidence 
used  the  word  “did”  ninety-two  times.  When  Mr. 
Dorsey  told  the  jury  that  Conley  all  throughout  his 
statement  said  “I  done,”  Mr.  Rosser  interrupted  him 
and  showed  by  the  record  and  by  the  official  stenogra¬ 
pher  that  Conley  on  the  witness  stand  said  “I  did” 
time  and  time  again. 

Dorsey  continues: 

Maybe  he  did  in  certain  instances  say  that  he  “did” 
so  and  so;  but  you  said  in  your  argument  that  if  there  is 
anything  in  the  world  a  negro  will  do  it  is  to  pick  up  the 
language  of  the  man  for  whom  he  works;  and  while  I’ll 
assert  that  there  are  some  instances  you  can  pick  out  in 
which  he  used  that  word,  there  are  other  instances  you 
might  pick  showing  that  he  said  “I  done,”  and  they 
know  it. 

Well,  how  does  that  sustain  Jim  Conley? 

Mr.  Dorsey  goes  on: 

All  right;  leave  the  language;  take  the  context. 
These  notes  say,  as  I  suggested  the  other  day,  that  she 
was  assaulted  as  she  went  to  the  toilet.  And  the  only 
toilet  known  to  Mary,  and  the  only  one  she  would  ever 
have  used  is  the  toilet  on  the  office  floor,  where  Conley 
says  he  found  the  body;  and  her  body  was  found  right  on 
the  route  that  Frank  would  pursue  from  his  office  to  that 
toilet,  right  on  back  also  to  the  metal  room. 

Mr.  Dorsey  proceeds  on  the  idea  that  the  note  was 
telling  the  exact  truth  as  to  how  Mary  Phagan  was 
killed.  Why,  the  object  of  the  note  was  to  throw 
everybody  off  the  trail,  of  course.  The  note  naturally 

54 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

would  have  put  her  as  being  killed  in  the  wrong  place, 
if  it  had  done  anything.  It  was  putting  it  on  the 
wrong  negro  and  putting  the  girl’s  death  in  the  wrong 
place. 

Don’t  you  suppose  if  Frank  was  dictating  the  notes 
and  trying  to  throw  everybody  off  the  track,  he 
would  not  have  had  the  notes  to  show  the  killing  to  be 
on  the  floor  where  he  actually  killed  the  girl?  Did 
you  ever  think  of  that?  Dorsey  says  Frank  has  good 
sense  and  his  theory  is  that  Frank  is  writing  the  notes 
to  throw  everybody  off  the  track.  His  theory  is  that 
the  notes  mean  that  the  girl  was  killed  right  on  the 
office  floor,  right  where  it  would  have  incriminated 
Frank;  and  his  further  conflicting  theory  is  that  Frank 
was  such  a  bungler  that  he  would  have  written  the 
notes  to  show  exactly  where  he  killed  her  and  to  show 
it  to  be  on  the  floor  where  his  office  was.  Surely,  he 
cannot  praise  Frank  for  his  good  sense  in  one  breath, 
and  by  his  construction  of  the  notes,  in  the  next 
breath,  prove  him  to  be  a  rank  fool. 

This  note  also  says:  “He  pushed  me  down  that 
hole.”  There  is  no  hole  she  could  have  been  pushed 
down  in  the  metal  room,  and  this  alone  shows  that 
Mr.  Dorsey’s  construction  of  the  note  was  wrong 
when  he  said  the  meaning  was  that  she  went  back  to 
the  toilet  in  the  metal  room.  She  was  evidently  pushed 
down  a  hole  in  the  same  place,  or  near  the  same 
place,  where  the  toilet  was;  and,  as  just  stated,  there 
was  no  such  hole  in  the  metal  room ;  but  there  were  two 
holes  on  the  ground  floor  at  the  bottom  of  the  steps. 

55 


The  Trial  oj  Leo  Frank 


One  hole  was  the  elevator  shaft  and  the  other  hole 
was  the  trapdoor  down  which  the  ladder  led,  which 
the  court  has  heard  so  often  spoken  of.  The  negro, 
knowing  that  he  had  pushed  the  girl  down  one  of  these 
holes,  unconsciously  brings  this  fact  out  in  the  note. 
While  he  was  cunning,  he  was  very  ignorant,  and  it 
was  hard  for  him  to  keep  up  a  connected  tale  in  these 
hastily  written  notes. 

Further,  Mr.  Dorsey  says: 

The  fact  that  this  note  states  that  a  negro  did  it  by 
himself  shows  a  conscious  effort  on  the  part  of  somebody 
to  exclude  and  limit  the  crime  to  one  man.  And  this  fact 
sustains  Jim  Conley. 

Does  it?  He  was  trying  to  limit  it  to  one  negro 
and  no  other  negro.  There  is  only  one  negro  in  it 
and  that  is  “that  tall,  black  negro.”  He  is  trying 
to  exclude  the  idea  that  he,  Conley,  had  any  part  in 
it  at  all,  and  trying  to  fasten  it  on  one  negro  alone. 
Perhaps  his  animosity  to  the  “long,  tall,  black  negro,” 
the  fireman  of  the  pencil  factory,  was  so  great  that  he 
alone  was  the  man  he  wanted  the  charge  to  center  on, 
and  perhaps  he  did  not  wish  to  involve  Newt  Lee. 

Mr.  Dorsey  argues: 

Frank,  even  in  his  statement,  sustains  him  as  to  the 
time  of  arrival  Saturday  morning  at  the  factory,  as  to  the 
time  of  the  visit  to  Montag,  as  to  the  folder  which  Conley 
says  Frank  had  in  his  hand,  and  Frank  in  his  statement 
says  he  had  the  folder.  The  time  that  Frank  says  he  left 
that  factory  sustains  old  Jim. 

56 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

Why,  they  had  all  of  these  statements  of  Frank  long 
before  Conley’s  statement  was  fixed  up.  Frank  made 
a  statement  to  the  coroner’s  jury,  full  and  in  detail, 
involving  all  these  facts.  Frank  made  a  statement 
before  the  detectives  and  it  was  easy  enough  for  the 
negro  to  chime  in  with  what  Frank  had  said.  But 
that  does  not  sustain  Conley. 

Besides,  Conley  as  he  sat  hidden  down  there  among 
the  boxes,  doubtless  knew  practically  everything  that 
happened  that  morning,  and  had  an  opportunity  to 
see  all  theise  people  come  and  go.  This  is  our  theory 
as  well  as  the  State’s. 

Mr.  Dorsey  goes  on: 

Conley  is  sustained  by  another  thing:  This  man  Harry 
White,  according  to  your  statement,  got  $2.00.  Where  is 
the  paper?  Where  is  the  entry  on  any  book  showing  that 
Frank  ever  entered  it  on  that  Saturday  afternoon,  when 
he  waited  for  Conley  and  his  mind  was  occupied  with  the 
consideration  of  the  problem  as  to  what  he  should  do  with 
the  body? 

They  didn’t  keep  a  book  showing  these  amounts. 
They  made  a  ticket  for  $2.00  and  put  it  in  the  drawer. 
It  was  done  at  this  time,  and  Schiff  said  he  found 
it,  and  that  was  all  that  was  ever  done  in  the  way 
of  an  entry.  They  treated  it  as  cash  when  they 
paid  White  his  wages,  and  instead  of  giving  him 
$2.00,  gave  him  his  ticket  on  the  next  pay  day. 

Dorsey  claims  Frank  forgot  to  make  an  entry  on 
the  book.  Yet  Frank  went  through  three  and  a  half 
hours  of  the  most  intricate  and  detailed  work  ever 

57 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


made  on  that  financial  sheet,  and  experts  say  there 
was  a  mistake  of  only  fifty  cents  made,  and  that  it 
could  have  been  made  by  not  carrying  out  minute 
decimals.  Yet  Dorsey  says  that  Frank’s  mind  was 
so  occupied  with  the  crime  that  he  made  a  mistake 
of  $2.00,  and  that  Conley  is  thereby  sustained. 

He  says: 

This  expert  in  bookkeeping,  this  Cornell  graduate,  this 
man  who  checks  and  re-checks  the  cash — you  tell  me  that 
if  things  were  normal,  he  would  have  given  out  to  that 
man  White  this  $2.00  and  not  have  taken  a  receipt,  or  not 
have  made  an  entry  himself  on  some  book  going  to  show 
it?  I  tell  you  there  is  only  one  reason  why  he  didn’t 
do  it. 

I  needn’t  repeat  it.  He  did  make  the  cash  ticket 
for  $2.00.  Schiff  found  it  and  entered  it  on  the  book; 
Schiff  says  that’s  the  way  it’s  always  done;  Frank 
says  it’s  the  way  it’s  always  done.  -White  says:  “I 
got  the  $2.00,”  and  there  is  no  complaint  that  White 
was  ever  paid  the  $2.00  again. 

Dorsey  continues: 

He  is  sustained  by  the  evidence  in  this  case  and  the 
statement  of  Frank  that  he  had  relatives  in  Brooklyn. 

Let’s  see  about  that.  Everybody  knew  he  was 
from  Brooklyn.  The  negro  had  worked  around  the 
factory  for  two  years.  The  newspapers  had  stated 
he  was  from  Brooklyn.  This  negro  read  the  news¬ 
papers  eagerly;  we  have  shown  all  that;  so  he  knew 
Frank  was  from  Brooklyn.  He  knew  his  father  and 

58 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

mother  lived  there.  He  doesn’t  merely  claim  that 
Frank  said  he  had  relatives  in  Brooklyn.  If  he  had, 
that  would  have  been  a  commonplace  statement  and 
it  would  have  had  no  bearing;  but  the  negro  lied  in 
what  he  did  state.  He  said  Frank  said:  “I’ve  got 
wealthy  relatives  in  Brooklyn,”  and  we  overwhelm¬ 
ingly  showed  he  did  not  have  wealthy  relatives 
there.  His  people  are  of  very  limited  means.  His 
father  was  a  traveling  salesman  with  an  income  of 
$1200  a  year.  He  is  old  and  crippled  now  and 
trouble  is  his  portion. 

Can  anybody  believe  that  the  negro  told  the  truth 
when  he  stated  that  Frank  paced  the  floor  and  in  his 
presence  said,  “Why  should  I  hang?  I  have  wealthy 
relatives  in  Brooklyn”  ? 

Further,  Dorsey  says: 

When  old  Jim  Conley  was  on  the  stand  Mr.  Rosser  put 
him  through  a  good  deal  of  questioning  with  reference  to 
some  fellow  by  the  name  of  Mincey.  Where  is  Mincey? 
Echo  answers:  “Where?”  Either  Mincey  was  a  myth  or 
Mincey  was  such  a  diabolical  perjurer  that  this  man  knew 
it  would  nauseate  the  stomach  of  a  decent  jury  to  have 
him  produced.  And  if  you  weren’t  going  to  produce 
Mincey,  why  did  you  parade  it  here  before  this  jury?  The 
absence  of  Mincey  is  a  powerful  fact  that  goes  to  sustain 
Jim  Conley  because  if  Mincey  could  have  contradicted 
Jim  Conley  or  could  have  successfully  fastened  an  admis¬ 
sion  on  old  Jim  that  he  was  connected  in  any  way  with  this 
crime, — depend  upon  it,  you  would  have  produced  him  if 
you  had  to  comb  the  State  of  Georgia  with  a  fine  tooth 
comb  from  Rabun  Gap  to  Tybee  Light. 

59 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


The  answer  to  that  is  this:  A  man  named  Mincey 
claimed  that  Conley  made  to  him  a  certain  statement. 
We  didn’t  know.  They  had  Conley  canned  for  weeks 
and  months.  We  didn’t  know  whether  he  was  going 
to  admit  or  deny  making  the  statement  to  Mincey. 
We  asked  Conley  about  it  and  it  was  our  duty  to  do 
so.  Any  fact,  probable  or  improbable,  that  has  been 
suggested  to  us  we  ought  to  ask  about.  Conley 
denied  it.  We  never  attached  any  importance  to 
Conley’s  denial  one  way  or  the  other.  Mincey’s  tale 
may  have  been  true,  but  it  did  not  impress  us  as 
evidence  that  was  probable  and  reasonable,  and 
rather  than  burden  our  case  with  anything  doubtful, 
we  decided  against  the  putting  up  of  Mincey. 

Now,  how  does  that  sustain  Jim  Conley? 

Dorsey  continues: 

Gentlemen,  every  act  of  that  defendant  proclaims  him 
guilty.  Gentlemen,  every  word  of  that  defendant  pro¬ 
claims  him  responsible  for  the  death  of  this  little  factory 
girl.  Gentlemen,  every  circumstance  in  this  case  proves 
him  guilty  of  this  crime. 

That  is  such  glittering  generality  that  I  beg  to  be 
excused  from  discussing  it.  I  know  of  no  circum¬ 
stance,  I  know  of  no  act,  I  know  of  no  word  of  this 
defendant,  inconsistent  with  innocence.  If  there  ever 
was  a  fair,  intelligent  statement  by  a  much  persecuted 
man,  it  was  this  man’s  statement  to  the  court  and 
jury;  and  I  say  further  that  a  cleaner,  more  honest 
defense  than  ours  has  never  been  put  up  in  a  court¬ 


room. 


60 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

I  have  now  gone  through  every  fact  in  this  case  that 
Mr.  Dorsey  says  corroborates  Jim  Conley,  every 
single  one  of  them.  I  don’t  claim  any  credit  for 
answering  them.  A  ten-year-old  school  boy  could 
answer  them  if  he  had  heard  the  evidence  and  was 
fair. 

Your  Honor,  the  newspapers  yesterday  carried  an 
account  of  the  trial  of  Wilburn  down  in  Jones  County, 
which  formed  quite  a  contrast  to  the  trial  of  Frank. 

A  farmer  had  been  killed.  A  young  man  confessed 
having  murdered  him  and  confessed  an  intimacy  with 
his  wife.  It  would  seem  to  be  just  such  a  case  as 
would  bring  all  of  the  savagery  of  the  populace  to  the 
surface.  Yet  the  people  sat  throughout  that  trial, 
and  heard  those  horrible  details  without  an  expres¬ 
sion  of  vengeance.  He  was  found  guilty  and  sen¬ 
tenced  to  hang,  and  the  dispatches  from  that  little 
town  say  the  people  were  sad  that  the  verdict  had  to 
be  rendered.  They  felt  that  under  the  facts  of  the 
case  it  had  to  be  done,  but  it  was  done,  not  in  glad¬ 
ness,  but  in  sorrow.  They  were  not  happy  that  a 
man  was  going  to  die. 

When  the  verdict  of  the  jury  was  rendered  in  the 
Frank  case,  and  even  before  the  jurors  had  been 
polled,  the  savages  that  were  grouped  about  the 
courthouse  here  on  either  side  were  making  the  air 
hideous  with  their  cries  of  delight  and  their  shouts 
of  joy. 

Capital  punishment  may  have  to  be  inflicted  occa¬ 
sionally,  but  when  it  is  done  it  ought  to  be  done  re- 

61 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


gretfully,  sorrowfully,  sadly.  Some  day  the  civilized 
world  will  look  with  as  much  horror  upon  our  taking 
a  human  life  by  law  as  we  do  upon  the  old  English 
law  of  years  ago,  when  even  the  theft  of  a  silk  hand¬ 
kerchief  was  a  capital  offense. 

Charles  Dickens,  in  writing  of  his  court  and  prison 
experiences,  wrote  one  little  story  that  helped  to 
start  the  great  crusade  that  changed  all  that  in  Eng¬ 
land.  It  was  written  in  the  first  person  by  a  young 
doctor  about  his  first  case. 

The  doctor  said : 

I  was  called  once  by  a  poor  mother  to  treat  a  case  at  her 
house;  I  went  there  as  she  asked  me  to  do,  and  she  said: 
“The  patient  hasn’t  come  yet  but  will  be  here  in  a  few 
minutes”;  and  in  a  few  minutes  the  dead- wagon  rumbled 
up  to  the  door  and  the  corpse  of  a  stalwart  young  man 
was  taken  out  and  the  mother  said  that  this  was  the  case. 
“Why,”  I  said,  “he  is  dead;  and  there  is  the  mark  of 
the  rope  around  his  neck.”  “Yes,”  said  the  mother, 
“I  just  wanted  you  to  see  if  he  was  dead,  and  if  there  was 
any  way  to  bring  him  back  to  life.” 

He  was  hung  for  some  small  theft.  The  mother 
had  hoped  there  might  be  some  life  left  in  the  body, 
which  the  doctor  might  revive. 

The  civilized  world  will  yet  stand  aghast  at  capital 
punishment.  It  finds  support  in  the  old  law  of  Moses: 
“Whoso  sheddeth  man’s  blood,  by  man  shall  his  blood 
be  shed.”  That  was  in  the  time  when  our  ancestors 
dressed  in  the  skins  of  animals;  that  was  in  the  day 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

when  they  were  pastoral;  when  they  were  shepherds; 
when  they  had  flocks  and  herds;  when  a  man  had  a 
hundred  wives  if  he  could  take  care  of  that  many; 
when  they  believed  in  human  sacrifices;  that  was  in 
the  day  when  the  nations  of  the  earth  believed  in 
every  form  of  torture;  when  the  Assyrians  and  other 
ancient  nations  would  cut  off  a  man’s  hands  and  feet 
when  they  took  him  prisoner;  that  was  even  before 
the  days  of  the  rack  and  the  Inquisition.  Men  be¬ 
lieved  in  that. 

But  when  Christ  came  to  earth  he  enunciated  the 
doctrine  that  I  have  never  understood  how  any  Chris¬ 
tian  can  reconcile  with  capital  punishment:  “Ye 
have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said,  1  An  eye  for  an  eye, 
and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth  but  I  say  unto  you,  whosoever 
shall  smite  thee  on  thy  right  cheek,  turn  to  him  the 
other  also." 

These  words  have  lived  through  the  ages;  but, 
strange  to  say,  many  Christians  that  have  professed 
to  follow  the  doctrines  of  the  Prince  of  Peace,  have 
been  as  bloody  as  the  Mohammedans  who  openly 
followed  the  doctrine  of  the  sword  and  torch. 

Civilization  is  a  slow  growth.  Not  by  mere  pro- 
nunciamento,  but  through  the  processes  of  the  years 
alone,  will  man  become  civilized.  It  is  an  evolution, 
just  as  we  grew  up  from  the  monkeys;  just  as  we  sat 
down  a  long  time  and  wore  off  the  tails  with  which 
we  once  scampered  around  the  trees;  just  as  we  wore 
off  the  hair  from  our  backs  by  wearing  clothes.  I 
hope  my  friends  Dorsey  and  Campbell  have  gotten 

63 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


rid  of  their  tails  and  hair,  but  this  case  doesn’t  look 
much  like  it  to  me. 

This  trial  seems  to  me  to  be  a  sort  of  reversion  to 
barbarism.  Here  is  a  man  condemned  to  death  on 
the  uncorroborated  evidence  of  a  moral  leper,  evidence 
given  to  save  himself,  evidence  that  is  contrary  to  all 
light  and  reason,  and  against  the  most  powerful  alibi 
ever  proved  in  court. 

At  the  beginning  there  was  nothing  against  this 
defendant  except  his  own  statement  that  he  had  seen 
the  girl  on  the  day  she  was  killed,  and  had  paid  her 
the  amount  that  was  due  her  for  her  work.  He  was 
the  last  person  known  to  have  seen  the  little  child 
alive,  and  it  would  not  have  been  known  that  he  had 
even  seen  her  except  for  his  own  statement  to  that 
effect.  A  guilty  man  would  never  have  voluntarily 
made  that  admission;  but  it  was  the  truth  and  Frank 
spoke  it. 

Many  stories  now  arose.  The  germs  of  prejudice 
multiplied.  In  the  soil  of  falsehood  the  feeling  against 
this  defendant  grew.  When  the  trial  came  on,  the 
oceans  of  feeling  and  prejudice  crept  into  the  court¬ 
house  at  the  very  beginning,  and  remained  there 
until  the  rejoicing  of  the  happy  savages  marked  the 
rendition  of  the  verdict. 

The  Solicitor  spoke  to  the  mob  as  much  as  to  the 
jury.  And  he  didn’t  have  to  use  any  reason  in  his 
argument;  if  he  had  blood  in  his  talk,  that  was  enough. 
It  was  poison  that  was  fed  to  those  jay  birds  in  the 
jury  box. 


64 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

Oh,  why  couldn’t  we  have  had  a  trial  like  Wilburn 
had?  There  was  no  ferocity,  no  hungering  for  human 
blood,  at  Wilburn’s  trial.  We  have  not  had  a  judicial 
trial.  A  judicial  trial  is  one  where  calm,  fair-minded 
men  get  together,  and  focus  their  minds  on  the  facts, 
and  spurn  every  outside  suggestion.  We  have  had 
no  such  trial  as  that. 

A  fair,  impartial,  judicial  consideration  of  this  case 
would  have  resulted  in  the  acquittal  of  the  defendant, 
for  his  innocence  has  been  proven. 

Can  you  conceive  of  a  white  man  of  Frank’s  intelli¬ 
gence,  in  broad  daylight,  with  the  doors  unlocked,  in 
charge  of  a  factory  like  this,  which  it  has  been  shown 
was  a  perfect  hive  of  people  all  the  morning  of  this 
tragedy — can  you  conceive  of  such  a  one’s  attempting 
such  a  deed?  The  whole  thing  is  so  despicably  im¬ 
probable. 

Monteen  Stover  was  at  the  factory  at  12:10.  By 
no  stretch  of  the  imagination  can  you  take  the  evi¬ 
dence  and  get  Mary  Phagan  there  before  12:10  to 
12:12.  At  12:30  Frank  is  seen  on  the  fourth  floor  by 
Denham  and  White.  He  left  at  “about  one  o’clock.” 
He  is  seen  on  the  comer  at  about  1:10.  Mrs.  Levi 
saw  him  get  off  the  car  at  his  home  at  1:20.  Even 
the  State’s  witness  McKnight  says  he  saw  him  out 
there  at  1 :3o. 

All  of  the  experiments  that  have  been  made  show 
that,  assuming  Conley  to  have  told  the  truth  as  to 
what  he  and  Frank  did,  Frank  could  not  have  left 
the  factory  before  1:30.  Yet  the  unmistakable  evi- 

65 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 

dence  shows  he  had  reached  his  home  before  that 
hour,  and  went  back  to  the  factory  in  the  afternoon, 
and  for  three  hours  worked  on  that  financial  sheet. 

Your  Honor,  have  we  lost  our  senses?  Is  this  case 
different  from  other  cases?  Do  different  rules  obtain 
here?  If  so,  why?  Sometimes  I  fear  that  perhaps 
the  law,  not  Leo  Frank,  is  on  trial. 

It  has  been  shown  that  the  time  Conley  gave  as  to 
the  disposition  of  the  body  was  false.  It  has  been 
shown  that  Mary  Phagan  was  not  at  the  pencil  fac¬ 
tory  at  the  time  Conley  claims  the  deed  was  done, 
and  that  Frank  was  not  there  at  the  time  Conley 
claims  the  body  was  moved. 

But  it  is  asked,  could  Conley  invent  such  a  tale?  I 
tell  you  if  there  is  any  one  talent  a  negro  has,  it  is 
inventing  a  striking  lie. 

Why,  Conley  stated  in  one  of  his  affidavits,  that 
before  he  went  to  the  pencil  factory  on  the  day  of  the 
killing,  he  went  over  on  Peters  Street  and  drank  at 
several  saloons.  He  went  into  many  details,  giving 
the  names  of  the  saloons,  the  kinds  of  spirits  he  drank, 
the  names  of  the  men  he  met,  and  the  various  things 
he  did.  He  says  now  that  every  word  of  that  affi¬ 
davit  was  false,  and  that  those  things  did  not  occur. 

Could  he  invent  a  tale?  We  have  his  own  evidence 
as  a  demonstration  that  he  could  invent  a  marvelous 
tale. 

It  has  been  shown  that  Conley  confessed  to  a  part 
of  the  crime,  and  that  confession  was  proven  false  by 
clocks,  watches  and  other  evidence.  It  has  been 

66 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 

shown,  that  he  wrote  the  notes  that  were  found  by 
the  body  of  the  dead  girl.  Don’t  you  know  that  if 
he  wrote  the  notes,  he  killed  the  girl?  Could  you 
offer  him  any  better  inducement  to  evade  and  to  lie 
than  not  to  charge  him  with  killing  the  girl,  when  he 
admitted  writing  the  notes?  The  detectives,  even 
then,  led  him  into  charging  the  notes  on  Frank. 

The  murder  of  Mary  Phagan  is  no  longer  a  mystery. 
The  experiments  that  have  been  made,  the  physical 
facts  of  the  case,  the  testimony  delivered  here,  show 
the  murderer  to  be,  not  Leo  M.  Frank,  but  Jim  Con¬ 
ley,  a  perpetual  law-breaker  who  has  a  law-breaking 
race  back  of  him  to  “the  time  whereof  the  memory  of 
man  runneth  not  to  the  contrary.” 

Will  you  accept  as  true  this  monstrous  tale  that 
Conley  tells,  or  will  you  place  the  judgment  of  a 
skilled  man  upon  it,  and  say  it  is  so  incredible  that 
you  will  not  foreclose  the  question  forever?  Conley, 
though  reveling  at  first  in  his  wonderful  accomplish¬ 
ment  as  a  liar,  lied  so  much  and  so  often  that  he  even¬ 
tually  lost  all  pride  about  lying,  and  when  cornered 
with  a  lie  that  he  couldn’t  explain,  just  admitted  it 
was  a  lie. 

Will  Your  Honor  allow  this  verdict  to  stand  by 
believing  Conley’s  latest  lie,  discarding  human  testi¬ 
mony,  and  changing  clocks,  watches  and  street  car 
schedules?  We  only  ask  that  justice  be  done. 

Here  is  the  only  place  we  can  argue  the  facts  on 
appeal.  The  Supreme  Court  has  no  jurisdiction  over 
questions  of  fact  where  the  witnesses  are  in  conflict. 

67 


The  Trial  of  Leo  Frank 


It  takes  errors  of  law  for  that  court  to  interfere. 
Your  Honor  alone  has  the  duty  and  the  responsibility 
now  of  approving  this  verdict,  or  setting  it  aside;  of 
saying,  as  an  independent  tribunal,  whether  the  jury 
found  the  truth. 

We  have  battled  against  the  twin  evils  of  prejudice 
and  ignorance,  but  we  are  panoplied  in  the  right.  And 

What  stronger  breast-plate  than  a  heart  untainted? 

Thrice  is  he  arm’d  that  hath  his  quarrel  just; 

And  he  but  naked,  though  lock’d  up  in  steel, 

Whose  conscience  with  injustice  is  corrupted. 

Much  is  said  these  days  about  law  and  order,  but 
I  say  to  you  that  the  spirit  back  of  this  prosecution, 
the  spirit  that  was  manifest  in  and  about  the  court¬ 
room  where  Frank  was  tried,  and  where  the  poor  man 
— I  hate  to  say  it — had  not  a  dog’s  show  for  his  life, 
was  not  the  law  and  order  spirit. 

The  fact  is  often  overlooked  that  a  crime  can  be 
committed  against  a  man  charged  with  crime.  There 
are  murders  in  court  as  well  as  out  of  court,  and  I 
would  no  more  be  a  party  to  the  one  than  to  the 
other.  We  may  be  sure,  too,  that  the  great  All 
Seeing  Eye  above  looks  not  merely  at  forms  of  things, 
but  sees  into  their  very  hearts. 

In  such  a  case  as  this  it  behooves  the  officers  of  the 
law  to  say  to  the  multitudes:  “Stop,  stay  your  hand; 
this  is  not  a  chase;  there  is  no  quarry  here  we  have 
joined  in  to  catch;  we  are  trying  to  find  a  fact,  and 
we  are  going  to  do  it  calmly,  considerately,  dispas¬ 
sionately,  if  it  takes  until  eternity  to  do  it.” 

68 


Mr.  Arnold's  Address  to  the  Court 


Your  Honor,  our  cause  is  right  and  must  eventually 
triumph  if  Justice  rules  in  Georgia.  Time  is  the  great 
truth  teHer.  Before  the  peaceful  passage  of  time 
false  creeds  wither,  error  topples  to  the  earth,  the 
passion  of  the  mob  subsides,  and  in  the  end  truth — 
and  only  truth — prevails. 


69 


Alvin  V.  Sellers’  Eloquent  Series 

“  CLASSICS  OF  THE  BAR  ” 

VOLUMES  I  and  II 

These  books  contain  sketches  of  the  world’s  great  legal 
trials  and  a  masterful  collection  of  brilliant  speeches  to  courts 
and  juries.  They  are  unique,  entertaining,  instructive. 
The  genuine  oratory  of  the  world  is  the  oratory  of  the  bar — 
eloquence  that  is  born  of  the  inspiration  of  the  moment  when 
life,  liberty  and  human  rights  are  involved. 


Contents  of  Volume  I 

In  Volume  I  you  hear  the  mighty  Prentiss  at  the  supreme 
height  of  oratorical  endeavor  in  Kentucky’s  greatest  murder 
trial,  pleading  to  a  jury  to  save  his  friend — a  speech  that  his 
antagonist  said  even  swept  away  the  reason  of  men. 

You  hear  Beach’s  burning  words  against  the  great  preacher, 
Henry  Ward  Beecher,  alleged  to  have  led  the  plaintiffs  wife 
astray,  and  you  hear  the  eloquent  Tracy  in  the  minister’s 
defense. 

You  hear  Clarence  Darrow  and  Senator  Borah  clash  in 
the  recent  Haywood  trial  as  they  speak  words  that  still 
echo  around  the  world. 

You  hear  the  District  Attorney  of  New  York  make  the 
most  powerful  appeal  for  a  verdict  of  guilty  ever  known  in 
the  courts  of  any  country. 

You  hear  Delphin  M.  Delmas  speak  for  the  acquittal  of 
Harry  Thaw  as  he  paints  in  graphic  colors  the  picture  of 
Evelyn  Nesbit’s  life  adown  the  primrose  path. 

You  are  charmed  by  the  silvery  language  of  General  Barnes 
as  he  makes  the  speech  that  sent  Theo  Durrant  to  his  doom 
for  the  murder  of  Blanche  Lamont  in  the  belfry  of  Emanuel 
Baptist  Church. 

All  of  these  and  more  are  found  in  Volume  I,  Classics  of 
the  Bar. 

300  Pages  Price,  $2.00 


Contents  of  Volume  II 

In  Volume  II  you  hear  Ben  Hardin,  the  “Achilles”  of  the 
Kentucky  bar,  in  his  reply  to  Prentiss  as  he  draws  upon  every 
resource  of  his  life  to  break  down  the  effect  of  his  adversary’s 
appeal  to  the  jury. 

You  hear  William  J.  Hadley  in  the  notable  trial  of  General 
Cole  for  the  killing  of  the  eminent  lawyer  Hiscock  in  New 
York.  Read  this  speech  and  determine  whether  the  “un¬ 
written  law”  is  a  house  built  upon  the  rocks  or  upon  the  sands. 

You  hear  Daniel  Webster’s  great  speech  in  a  murder  case 
that  held  a  court  and  jury  spellbound  for  hours — a  truly  great 
speech,  remarkable  in  its  power  of  reasoning,  wonderful  in 
its  thought  and  language. 

You  hear  Dan  Voorhees,  as  he  makes  the  speech  in  a  damage 
suit  that  won  a  verdict  for  $100,000.  The  Court,  on  review, 
set  the  verdict  aside  and  said  in  its  decision  that  this  speech 
had  swept  the  jury  from  their  feet  and  caused  them  to  render 
an  excessive  verdict.  This  ruling  of  the  court  is  of  itself  a 
most  remarkable  tribute  to  this  wonderful  speech  of  the  “Tall 
Sycamore  of  the  Wabash.” 

You  hear  the  late  Mayor  W.  J.  Gaynor  of  New  York  on 
“The  Arrest  and  Trial  of  Jesus  from  a  Legal  Standpoint”; 
this  is  indeed  a  classic — a  judicial  review  of  the  world’s  most 
tragic  courtroom  trial.  Every  phase  of  this  historic  event 
is  discussed  by  this  noted  jurist  from  the  standpoint  of  its 
regularity  and  legality  according  to  the  system  of  law  and 
government  under  which  it  occurred. 

Mayor  Gaynor,  a  short  while  before  his  death,  gave  Alvin 
Sellers  special  permission  to  publish  in  this  book  this  master¬ 
piece  and  it  cannot  be  found  in  any  other  book  in  the  world. 

All  of  these  and  more  are  found  in  Volume  II,  Classics  of 
the  Bar. 

300  Pages  Price,  $2.00 

Each  volume  is  handsomely  bound  in  green  cloth,  is  illus¬ 
trated,  has  gold  tops,  silk  headbands  and  artist’s  design  on 
cover.  An  attractive,  substantial  work  of  merit. 

The  witching  spell  of  Titans  makes  every  page  a  page  of 
joy— a  revelry  with  genius  around  an  intellectual  banquet 
board. 

Should  you  order  these  books  and  find  them  not  satisfactory 
your  money  will  be  refunded.  Could  you  ask  more? 

Price  of  “Classics  of  the  Bar”  $2.00  per  volume;  $4.00  per  set 
We  prepay  transportation  charges 

CLASSIC  PUBLISHING  CO. 

P.  O.  Box  278  BAXLEY,  GA. 


/ 


Trials. 


L9B778_ V o  1 . 20 


DATE 

ISSUED  TO 

_ _ 

•Otr?  2,0 


